Arkansas Times - March 15, 2018 by Arkansas Times

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MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

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VOLUME 44, NUMBER 28

ARKANSAS TIMES (ISSN 0164-6273) is published each week by Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham Street, Suite 200, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72201, phone (501) 375-2985. Periodical postage paid at Little Rock, Arkansas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ARKANSAS TIMES, 201 EAST MARKHAM STREET, SUITE 200, Little Rock, AR, 72201. Subscription prices are $42 for one year, $74 for two years. Subscriptions outside Arkansas are $49 for one year, $88 for two years. Foreign (including Canadian) subscriptions are $168 a year. For subscriber service call (501) 375-2985. Current single-copy price is 75¢, free in Pulaski County. Single issues are available by mail at $2.50 each, postage paid. Payment must accompany all single-copy orders. Reproduction or use in whole or in part of the contents without the written consent of the publishers is prohibited. Manuscripts and artwork will not be returned or acknowledged unless sufficient return postage and a self-addressed stamped envelope are included. All materials are handled with due care; however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for care and safe return of unsolicited materials. All letters sent to ARKANSAS TIMES will be treated as intended for publication and are subject to ARKANSAS TIMES’ unrestricted right to edit or to comment editorially.

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COMMENT

One-size-fits-all FMLA is unrealistic Five years ago, I worked at a bank to put myself through college. I was simultaneously caring for my terminally ill father. He was diagnosed my freshman year, and he nearly survived up to his goal: to see me graduate. He passed away six months prior to my walk across the stage. His illness progressed rapidly in the last few months of his life. He was admitted to the hospital 11 days before he passed and we knew it was the end. I went to my employer to discuss my options, but there was one extra hurdle during this already tragic situation: I was exactly two weeks shy of qualifying for benefits under the Family Medical Leave Act. My story has a happier ending than most who find themselves in this situation. My employer valued me, and my boss covered my shifts and let me use my accrued paid time off in the weeks leading up to and after my father’s passing. My employer had compassion, and there was never a question that my job was safe for me to return to once the dust settled from the chaos that was my personal life at the time. However, this story could have ended much differently because I did not yet qualify for benefits under the FMLA. My employer easily could have fired me instead, because of employment at-will. Even if I had qualified for FMLA benefits, there are still many obstacles to overcome because the FMLA is a one-size-fits-all statute. First, employers must be covered under the FMLA: They must employ 50 or more employees for each working day during each of 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year and be engaged in commerce or in any industry or activity affecting commerce. So, small businesses of 49 or fewer employees are not covered and do not have to comply with the FMLA. Second, if the employer meets the covered entity criteria, the employee is only entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid, jobprotected leave in a 12-month period. This can often put individuals between a rock and a hard place because many of the “qualifying serious health conditions” which are covered by the FMLA persist for more than 12 weeks in a 12-month period. Further, the leave mandated by the FMLA is unpaid. Employers may require, or an employee may choose, to use accrued paid time 4

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

off while taking FMLA, but there is no federally mandated requirement that employees be compensated during this time, even if they have sufficient accrued paid leave. So, it can be difficult for individuals dealing with this situation to pay their bills while caring for themselves or a loved one. Although unpaid protection that covers some leave is better than none, a one-size-fits-all statute is simply unrealistic in today’s world. Science and technology are constantly advancing and the treatment for many of the “qualifying serious health

conditions” is ever evolving, so the law governing when an individual can take leave to care for herself or a loved one with this type of diagnosis should also change. A more practical approach may be to allow employees to contribute to an FMLA “bank,” like retirement planning, or provide a FMLA insurance policy similar to life insurance. Often, individuals who would need more than 12 weeks in a 12-month period and would rely on that income, meaning they would need the leave to be paid, know of the needs when

they are hired. If an employee could purchase more coverage via monthly premiums, similar to a life insurance setup, or contribute a dollar amount or percentage of each pay period to accrue more coverage in their sick leave bank that they could then use for FMLA or regular sick leave, then employees who are already facing a tremendously difficult situation would likely be better employees. This is likely because they would not also be worried about having an income stream during this time. The employer would also benefit from this morale boost and would likely see more efficient employees if employees had more control over their time off work. Hopefully, more employers and states will continue improving FMLA leave. The passage of SB 125 last year, providing four weeks of paid maternity leave for state agency employees, is certainly a step in the right direction for Arkansas. However, this law only impacts state employees, so individuals working for private employers do not reap these benefits. There is still plenty of room for improvement that would impact all Arkansas employees. Jennifer Hosp Fayetteville

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arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the week “He’s in Philadelphia. He’s in south Jersey. (Whispered) He needs to go away. He needs to be gone.” — An FBI transcript of former Arkansas lobbyist Rusty Cranford included in new federal court documents alleging that Cranford plotted to kill a co-conspirator. The alleged murder target was D.A. Jones, a Pennsylvania consultant who’s pleaded guilty to scheming to get money from Preferred Family Healthcare, the Medicaid-enriched nonprofit that made millions providing mental health and other services in Arkansas and neighboring states. Cranford once worked there, too. Cranford has not been charged, but the information is contained in a prosecutor’s motion that Cranford be denied bail on an earlier charge. Earlier court filings indicate Cranford played a role in the kickback scheme in which former Republican state Rep. Micah Neal and former Republican state Sen. Jon Woods, both of Springdale, are accused of working with others to channel a portion of state money aimed at Ecclesia College to themselves. Neal has pleaded guilty. Woods is awaiting trial.

Arkansas Works appropriation approved

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

Last week, unlike previous years, the Arkansas legislature approved the budget for Arkansas Works, the state’s unique version of Medicaid expansion, without a standoff. There were three vacancies in the Senate, which made the prospect of achieving the required supermajority to pass the budget appear daunting. But last week, two Republican senators who had opposed Arkansas Works for years voted for the appropriation, giving it approval 27-2 with no votes to spare. The measure passed 79-15 in the House of Representatives. Governor Hutchinson said the passage of the appropriation was owed to the Trump administration’s approval of a waiver that requires Arkansas Works recipients ages 19-49 to prove they are working at least 80 hours a month. If they don’t comply, they could lose coverage for up to a year.

SUING: (from left) Lt. Earnest Whitten, Sgt. Derrick Threadgill, Sgt. Willie Davis, Lt. Johnny Gilbert Jr. and lawyer Mike Laux.

Civil rights suit filed against Little Rock Saying the Little Rock Police Department is riddled with racism, attorney Mike Laux announced March 12 that he has filed suit against the city on behalf of three black LRPD officers and one former LRPD officer who say they were discriminated against through a lack of promotions, lower

salaries and uneven discipline when compared to their white counterparts on the force. Laux said two other black officers will join the plaintiffs once those officers receive approval to sue from the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller. Laux said that in addition to racial discrimination in hiring and promotions, there is also “a component of age” when

it comes to advancement of black officers at LRPD, with black officers told to “be patient” and wait their turn for promotions. After years on the force, Laux said, some of those officers are told, “Guess what? You’re too old.” The complaint was filed in federal court on behalf of LRPD officers Sgt. Willie Davis, Lt. Earnest Whitten, Sgt. Derrick Threadgill and former LRPD officer Jackie Parker. Laux said Lt. Johnny Gilbert Jr. and Capt. Tonya Washington would join the complaint as soon as they received letters from the EEOC saying they had the right to sue.

Shepherd wins speaker’s race The Arkansas House cast secret ballots after adjournment Monday to pick a speaker for the 2019 legislative session, and the winner was Rep. Matthew Shepherd, an El Dorado Republican. He bested Rep. Andy Davis, also a Republican, who carried the baggage of being from Little Rock. Shepherd is speaker-elect. Rep. Jeremy Gillam (R-Judsonia) remains speaker through this year. He is not seeking re-election.

OPINION

Send in the segs

he state Board of Educa“ P u t s i m p l y, tion last week rejected requests the State cannot from Camden Fairview, Hope, authorize segreLafayette County and Junction City to gative transfers be exempt from the state law requiring and excuse that students to be able to freely transfer result based on between school districts. the allegedly unbi- MAX BRANTLEY All those majority black districts said ased ‘desires of the maxbrantley@arktimes.com they were controlled by past federal parent.’ ” desegregation lawsuits. All said openBut the Arkansas Board of Educaing their districts to transfers would tion, acting on wishes of the legislature, lead to white flight. rejects the rule of law. A 2017 state law said the state, rather In Cooper v. Aaron, the landmark than federal courts, could determine if Little Rock school desegregation case, a school district had made a valid claim the U.S. Supreme Court said clearly that for exemption. Allen Roberts Law Firm state officials may not act in ways that attorneys in Camden contend this 2017 “nullify a federal court order.” law is unconstitutional and expect to But that was 1957. In 2018, lawchallenge the decisions in federal court. yers for school districts attempting to The law firm argues that the state maintain integration may have Cooper has an obligation not to approve poli- v. Aaron on their side, but they’ve lost cies that encourage racially identifiable the Arkansas legislature, the governor school districts. In the heady days of the and his appointees and, most likely, the civil rights movement, courts could be Arkansas Supreme Court. It’s like the depended on to rule just that way. The 101st Airborne never rolled into Little law firm quoted an Alabama decision: Rock.

Tax ‘relief’

tormy Daniels, North Korea and directly on investors in the form of stock malicious Russians all belong on buybacks and higher dividends and only the back burner. The big political 13 percent on employees, including corpogame to watch, because it moves the rate executives, whose compensation is odds at this year’s national elections and often tied to stock affects your wallet, is still the Tax Cuts prices, which rise and Jobs Act that Republicans passed with buybacks. in December. A downside of Republicans and Democrats mounted the new tax law marketing campaigns to sell voters on — your growing ERNEST either the Republican case that the big chunk of national DUMAS tax overhaul is a bonanza for them or debt — is reserved the Democrats’ notion that in the long for the smaller type on the financial run it screws them. pages. The week the Treasury DepartNo one doubts who the primary ben- ment auctioned another $34 billion of eficiaries are — corporations and other debt to cover government expenses business owners. But one corporation after revenues plummeted and Conafter another came forward, with White gress lifted debt and spending limits. House acclaim, to announce they were Polls show that Republicans are wingoing to spread some of the big tax sav- ning the political stakes, as they always ings to workers in the form of bonuses, do — remember the PR war after the wage increases or new hires. Americans passage of the Affordable Care Act in for Tax Reform put out a list of 400 2010, won decisively by the GOP. companies that were giving workers a Arkansas had its share of happy news. raise or a bonus. Democrats countered Walmart announced that, thanks to the with companies that were using their tax law, it was raising its lowest startnew profits on stock buybacks, dividend ing wage and giving one-time bonuses hikes and executive bonuses. starting at $250 to employees who have Morgan Stanley analysts weighed in been there longer than two years. Spoilwith an estimate that corporations would ers pointed out that the company gave spend 43 percent of their tax savings similar benefits at the end of 2015 and

The state Board of Education deci- an intermediate step. sions nearly complete a movement that Simply: Appointees of the Arkansas began in a Malvern lawsuit and has been governor sided with nullification of fedsupported since by the Walton fortune eral court authority. Gov. Orval Faubus, and other Arkansas millionaires. They who created the 1957 crisis rather than want to end universal public education being out-segged by Justice Jim Johnas we once knew it as foundational to son, would be smiling today. an equitable democracy. In time, it will The decision came the same week UA be stripped of democratically elected Little Rock’s Dr. Barclay Key’s lecture to school boards (as has already happened the History Institute on a lesser known in Little Rock); teacher associations school crisis. In 1967, 10 years after Cenwill be destroyed (they have meaning- tral High, Little Rock segs fearing true ful power in only two or three Arkansas school integration through the proposed districts now); government spending “Oregon Plan” that decoupled schools will be reduced; schools will be turned from neighborhoods, retook control of over to profit-hungry private manag- the Little Rock School Board with backers who use a high burn-rate of under- ing of the real estate community, which paid, inexperienced teachers to achieve liked segregated neighborhoods. Ousted desired bottom lines at charter schools were supposed liberals (including my (publicly financed quasi-private schools future father-in-law, I should disclose). exempt from being required to take all In came freedom of choice and, as a comers), and students will be increas- result, a civil rights lawsuit that spanned ingly segregated by race and/or class. a half-century. The school voucher movement is We’ve come full circle. The Waltons on the rise now, too, and got a lift from are cheering. Segregation is not only the legislature this week with still more legal, it’s encouraged. The holdouts in diversion of tax money to private K-12 El Dorado, North Pulaski and some segschools. Vouchers are what the bil- ments of Little Rock are under constant lionaires wanted all along, but initial attack from Walton-paid lobbyists. In resistance brought charter schools as time, the state will come for them, too.

2016. Walmart also announced it was cutting 1,000 jobs and closing 63 Sam’s Club Stores. But there was some unalloyed good news. Electricity and gas consumers in Arkansas will see their monthly bills lowered before the fall elections. Investor-owned utilities, all monopolies, typically are allowed to earn a state-fixed rate of return on investments, so most of their new tax savings will have to be returned to the ratepayers. Governor Hutchinson saw the political opportunity and asked his Public Service Commission to start rate proceedings to immediately divert the utilities’ savings to ratepayers. Entergy Arkansas, the big electric utility, filed a tariff that will go into effect April 1. For the average homeowner, the rate cut will be between $40 and $45 a month over the year’s remaining nine months. Wait, scrub that $45. The fine details of Entergy’s tariff call for it to spread the year’s savings for residential customers over 21 months, not nine months, so it will be more like $20.35 a month. Entergy’s explanation for keeping people’s money another year is that it will protect homeowners from the “rate shock” that would occur if their bills went back up from over $40 on Jan. 1, 2019. Residential customers, of course, can handle the shock as easily as industrial and commer-

cial users and deserve to get their money when it is due, just as the biggies will. The tax law’s marketing has another hitch. Like every major law devised in secret and haste, it is full of errors and miscalculations that need to be fixed by law. Businesses that did not have a lobbyist in the huddle when the bill was drafted are discovering that the fine print or drafting errors puts them at a competitive disadvantage or without the full benefits they expected. But in this political climate, fixing the law might be impossible. The Affordable Care Act had to be enacted and preserved in spite of its known flaws because Republicans had the votes to prevent any fixes. Since they were not allowed to fix Obamacare or have any role in drawing up the tax law, Democrats may force Republicans to live with what they did. Stephen Steed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that the law may put commercial grain dealers in Arkansas and other states out of business because it allows farmers to deduct 20 percent of their sales to farmer-owned co-operatives, but not to commercial grain houses. What farmer will sell to a grain dealer if he can get his taxes erased by selling to a co-op? Who cares? Republicans may not be dynamite at lawmaking, but they will prove again that they are unsurpassed at marketing.

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arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

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MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

t would be an exaggeration to say Ronnie, also a Razorback). Delph turned I’ve been an NCAA basketball junkie down a pro career to preach the Gospel. all my life. My addiction got serious I got really emotional watching The in junior high, when my friends and I Triplets’ last game together because played pickup games every afternoon I was sure we’d and followed the West Virginia Moun- never see their taineers on the radio. like again. We idolized the great Jerry West, Except, of a hero from what seemed to us New course, that we Jersey kids a remote and colorful land. d i d . Having GENE “Zeke from Cabin Creek” led his team become a strong LYONS to the NCAA final game in 1959, los- local patriot, I ing to California 71-70. Nobody in West wrote another magazine profile some Virginia was more disappointed than us years later about Nolan Richardson Jersey boys. West, of course, went on to during his second season in Fayettea brilliant Hall of Fame career with the ville, when anonymous experts on radio NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers. call-in shows insisted that Arkansas’s Although my own high school career first black head coach was too undiswas undistinguished, I was neverthe- ciplined to succeed. I attended pracless hooked. In college, I had a nodding tices and did some interviews. Nolan’s acquaintance with the late Jim Valvano, players clearly loved and feared and drove down to Princeton and over him in exactly the right proportion. to Madison Square Garden to watch Bill He’d won everywhere else, I wrote; Bradley play. he’d surely win at Arkansas. And win But what really sealed the deal was he did, including Arkansas’s only NCAA marrying an Arkansas coach’s daughter. National Championship, in 1994. It’s a At the University of Virginia, where we story that’s been told better elsewhere, met, Diane and I never missed a home notably by the late Frank Deford. basketball game. You meet my wife, you The coach’s daughter and I never don’t right away think “basketball star.” miss an Arkansas game on TV. Nor do But she told funny stories about her days our sons. Also, that one thing we love as a 5-foot-2 forward for the Mount St. about the current team is that the rosMary Academy’s Belles. Little Rock pub- ter’s filled with Arkansas kids who grew lic schools had no girls teams in those up dreaming of being Razorbacks. Win days. So she and her teammates rode or lose, it’s our team. school buses to get thrashed by “big old To me, fans of TV teams filled with country girls” in places like Jessieville “one-and-done” players are missing and Guy — the only Catholics for miles something important. Given Kentucky’s around. proud basketball tradition, for examHaving followed Diane the long way ple, I’d pull for Western Kentucky and home from school, I resisted the Razor- Northern Kentucky if I lived there. back obsession. Then came Sidney MonAlso, here’s the thing: I feel pretty crief, Marvin Delph and Ron Brewer, much the same about your home team, three black kids from Little Rock, Con- too. The opening weekend of the NCAA way and Fort Smith who changed the Tournament inspires me with great face of Arkansas athletics during the gusts of Woody Guthrie-style Amerilate 1970s. Literally, I mean. “The Trip- can patriotism. What an amazing and lets,” as they were called, played with a various country we have. This year, I’m flair and intensity that turned Arkansas following Virginia, Kansas, Gonzaga, into a basketball-obsessed state almost Michigan and Purdue. overnight. They did more to better the So, no, I don’t think most of the kids state’s racial climate than all the preach- we’ve cheered for have been “exploited” ers and politicians combined. in any real way. They’ve been given an Reaching the Final Four will do that opportunity, not a guarantee. But, sure, for you. I’d give players a decent (and equal) stiFor a while there, Moncrief was prob- pend. I’d fix the one-and-done problem ably the most popular man in in the state. by making athletic scholarships a twoHe could probably have run for governor, year commitment. A player could leave but he chose to become an NBA All-Star after one season, but the school couldn’t instead. I once wrote a magazine profile fill the vacancy. of Sidney, and he was kind enough to You’d see more hometown heroes remember my sons’ names. Brewer, too, fast — what the NCAA Tournament is had a long NBA career (so did his son all about.

A gun shift? T

his week marks a month since the attitudinal trends. After Parkland, major massacre at Marjory Stoneman gun retailers shifted their policy on sales. Douglas High School. To note Dick’s Sporting Goods curtailed the sale of that anniversary, students planned to assault-style rifles walk out of schools across the country to entirely and also is remember the deaths of the 17 students limiting sales of any at the Parkland, Fla., high school and to guns to those 21 and call for an end to gun violence. There is above; Walmart no doubt the Parkland shooting and its — which stopped aftermath have jolted public opinion selling assault-style JAY across the country on the issue of wheth- guns in 2015 — folBARTH er government should take action to lowed its competilimit access to guns. The key questions: tor’s lead on new age requirements. Just as How permanent is that shift in attitudes important, various businesses ended partand, in a political atmosphere in which nerships with the NRA. Delta, for instance, the opponents of policy change on guns axed a discount program for NRA memhave such power, can attitudinal change bers. (In return, Delta was slapped by the be translated into legislative action? Georgia state legislature, which pulled a A CNN survey in late February state fuel tax exemption that would have showed that fully seven in 10 Ameri- benefited that state’s largest employer to cans favor stronger gun control laws the tune of $40 million per year.) — the highest level of gun-control supWhile significant change appears to port since the early days of the Clinton have occurred in terms of public opinion presidency and an 18 percent jump from and cultural norms regarding the role of when the question was asked after the guns in American life, there appears to mass shooting in Las Vegas last year. be no will for change at the federal level, Public opinion is fickle, but there is con- where the NRA and related gun-rights siderable evidence that this shift marks groups have shown themselves to have a a more fixed alteration to mass opinion tremendous ability to play defense. The that previous bursts of enthusiasm for real combat in recent years has been at governmental action on guns. the state level, where hundreds of laws First, young Americans are decidedly have been enacted. At that level, while more concerned about the role of guns in some gun-control action has occurred American life than the oldest Americans in a handful of states, the NRA has sucand, thus, public opinion shifts bit by bit ceeded in passing laws that expanded as “generational replacement” occurs. gun rights across the country. Second, as a result of the Parkland shootIn state politics, the NRA’s success ing, gun-control backers have finally during the Obama years was driven by found in the survivors a set of faces and the group’s effective messaging to dense voices that are effective and empathetic grassroots and social media networks of advocates for change. Third, those sur- gun enthusiasts that the Obama adminisvivors and their allies are savvy users of tration represented a threat to gun ownersocial media. For example, Emma Gonza- ship. This fear — evidenced by bursts of lez (@Emma4Change), the most distinc- gun purchases around Obama’s elections tive voice from Parkland, attracted more in those states — provided fertile ground Twitter followers than the NRA Twitter for the NRA to influence subsequent state channels within days, and #NeverAgain legislation. The story of this effective NRA has emerged as the slogan of the move- work in the states suggests that gun-conment. Finally, President Trump’s contin- trol activists must develop a similarly ued support for the NRA and unfettered dense network of activists to have their gun rights inflates support for gun con- own success at the state level. The surpristrol and has made Trump, consistently ing legislative success last week in Florida, unpopular with the American public, a a state where the NRA has dominated for proxy for the issue, a phenomenon we years but is ground zero for the #Nevhave seen with other policy debates in erAgain movement, shows the power the months of the Trump presidency. of such activism. Since the slaughter of More telling, the arrival of the #Nev- first-graders in Newtown, Conn., Moms erAgain moment has also helped cement Demand Action has attempted to create new cultural norms regarding the role a grassroots effort to combat the NRA’s of guns in American life. Perhaps the power at the state level. The crucial issue most tangible marker of changed norms for turning attitudinal and cultural shifts in a capitalist system is action by busi- on guns into legislation is whether efforts nesses deeply conscious of longer-term such as that are ultimately successful.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

ike Anderson has just sent his third team to the dance, and you can easily argue that the star power Bobby Portis brought to the table in 2014-15, along with a healthy 26 wins in the regular season, is what vaulted the Hogs to a No. 5 seed. Since the conclusion of the 1994-95 season, that represents a tie for the best national seed the program has earned for the tourney, and not coincidentally, Arkansas bolted right back out of the tournament before the first weekend was finished, losing to North Carolina. The Hogs, seeded eighth, memorably duplicated that feat by fighting their porcine asses off in a loss to the same Tar Heels, this time a No. 1 seed, on the final day of opening weekend last year. John Pelphrey’s only tournament team was a No. 8 seed that gagged away a potential SEC Tournament title by losing to the darlings of Athens in 2008 when a tornado in Atlanta threatened to end the whole show early, and that group also lost to Carolina in the second round, by more than 30 points. Stan Heath’s last two squads made it to the tourney and promptly lost in the opening round as lower-seeded bunches. It’s that inability to make much of a postseason ripple that has caused these bracketologists — you know, the guys who filled the old blank Monday newspaper one in their community college algebra classes — to discern that Arkansas isn’t going to deserve a better seed until it proves it can carry its way through a regular season and conference tournament without a jarring stumble. The Hogs won 23 games this year and beat five ranked teams; they also lost by double digits at home to a pitiful LSU team and a Kentucky team not far removed from a four-game losing skid, in addition to getting bombed in nonconference play by Houston and UNC. Their SEC Tournament performance was a fine one overall, with a narrow, sluggish victory over last year’s darlings from South Carolina and then a commanding second-half effort to stop a long skid against Florida, but they ran out of gas Saturday against a scalding Tennessee team that clearly had a level of energy that the Razorbacks did not. Arkansas, therefore, is a 7 seed. One might describe this as either fitting, a tad low or a tad high, and all descriptors would likely be correct. The Hogs look like they might be one of the country’s top 25 to 30 teams generally, but

the deficiencies that crop up from time to time are clear evidence that foolish inconsistency is the hobgoblin of these BEAU little Pigs. WILCOX Nevertheless, the NCAA Tournament offers, yet again, an opportunity at renewal and recapturing that lost legacy. We’ve been lightly critical of Mike Anderson for not delivering a really signature moment over seven years here, and though his job is safe regardless, another first-weekend bowing-out for the Hogs will assuredly give rise to more gripes. This is a senior-laden team, a complete anomaly in today’s game, and yet there have been segments of the season where the team has been suspiciously bereft of leadership and direction. There’s good depth, competent perimeter shooting and commendable ball security, even if the rebounding effort continues to wax and wane. Butler is no slouch for an opening game, either. Hearkening to the Hogs’ lack of NCAA Tournament success, how’s this strike you? The little school that plays its games on the “Hoosiers” set just happens to have 21 tourney wins under its belt since the turn of the century; Arkansas has all of three. Tradition is strong for the Bulldogs, and that’s why you can expect their fans to flock to Detroit for this Friday afternoon tilt, whereas Arkansas fans will smirk derisively about the crime and punishment factor, and likely decline the chance to see the Motor City’s many attractions, even the boyhood home of Ted Nugent. And ironically, a good showing by Hog fans might fuel the program to the necessary two wins over Indianabased schools (No. 2 seed Purdue would likely loom next) needed to end a long Sweet 16 drought and propel the Hogs to a second weekend in a more accessible metropolis. But it all begins by trying to knock off a team that has a strong recent March pedigree, and Arkansas has not been able to overcome that in prior trips. The Hogs beat Indiana in 2008, but the Hoosiers were absolutely wracked with controversy and coached by an interim, Dan Dakich, thanks to Kelvin Sampson’s documented misdeeds weeks beforehand. They beat a scrappy Wofford team in 2015 and put away Seton Hall last spring.

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

The job

he Observer and Mr. Photographer were headed across town on our way to another press conference the other day when we got to talking about The Job. Newspaperin’. Getting the goods. Questing forth with notebook, pen and camera to bring back what average folks would never be privy to otherwise, often because there’s somebody out there who would rather you not know. The best quote about journalism (other than, of course: “Your mother says she loves you? Check it out”) is attributed to George Orwell, even though ol’ George probably didn’t say it. “Journalism,” Orwell or some other wise soul said, “is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” There have been times over the past dozen years that Mr. Photographer has literally lurked in the bushes with his long lens, scoping out a target who would rather not have been preserved for posterity in pursuit of doing more than public relations. The Observer and Mr. Photographer have both labored here at the Fortress of Employment pretty much the same amount of years; which is to say, numerous. In that time, we’ve rolled many a mile onto the odometer together, traveling around the state, talking to folks, drinking roughly 60,000 gallons of truck stop coffee, often dragging back home long after sundown with the words and snaps that attempt to freeze a moment, person, place and mood like a bug in amber, to hopefully be polished and cut into a little jewel of understanding for you. Yes, you, Dear Reader. Mr. Photographer succeeds, without fail, in making Yours Truly look good week after week. Meanwhile, the best we can say about what The Observer does for him is: We usually drive the car, buy him an Egg McMuffin every once in a while and try to keep our big ass out of his shot. Over the years, we’ve learned to take a careful step back whenever we see the inky black snout of his camera loom into the periphery of our vision; to keep the sun at our shoulder in the

morning and afternoon so as not to cast a looming, doublewide shadow into his frame. He, meanwhile, has perfected his ability to remember the questions The Observer fails to think of, forgets to ask, or is too dumb to pose. While we must admit that his interjecting questions during interviews irked us a bit early on — just who is the reporter here, bucko? — we can no longer count the times he’s saved our thick hide from the shame of writing a correction or the hassle of a follow-up callback. Ours is a symbiotic relationship not unlike the little bird that perches on the back of rhinoceros. We are unclear at times on just who is the bird and who is the rhino. Driving across town to the press conference earlier this week, we agreed that The Job is the best time we’re ever likely to have while getting paid for it, both of us long past our potential prime as Chippendales dancers. There is nothing like it, the ol’ Shutterbug said: throwing the strap of a bag over your shoulder, going places and talking to people, getting out into the sunshine instead of being tied to a desk. No feeling like it at all, and impossible to explain to anyone who has never done it. Yes, The Observer observed, no feeling like it. We motored on in silence for a block or two, trying to think of the word to explain it, even to each other, even though we have both been there and done that for years. “It’s the feeling of doing work you believe is important,” The Observer said after a while. “Not everybody gets to do that.” The moment the words were out of our yap, they felt simultaneously so true and so pretentious that we decided to say nothing more. Luckily, we were at our destination by then. Inside, a man in a suit stood near a microphone, waiting to say things others would rather you didn’t hear. For the millionth time, we piled out with our bags and checked our batteries and pens. Then we headed off in search of what you need to know, boss: the who, what, when, where and — most crucial of all, if one can find it in this confusing world — the why.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Considering Congress

AR Lic #2454

espite a clear opportunity to approval rating has cratered to 47 permake significant gains in the cent in the 3rd — the only congressiostate legislature, the prospects nal district in Arkansas where he finds for a Democratic surge at the congres- himself underwater. sional level in Arkansas are relatively Trump’s appardim. In an extension of the vote share, ent collapse in the demographic and Trump approval district is due in analysis produced for the state house large part to the and senate chambers, John Ray, Jesse region’s rapidly Bacon and I estimate that only two con- shifting demogBILLY gressional districts show any real signs raphy. The 3rd FLEMING of competitiveness as this stage: the 2nd District is adding Guest Columnist and 3rd. A lot can change in six months, more college-edubut, at the moment, it appears unlikely cated white, Latino and millennial-age that the blue wave will extend much voters than any other district in Arkanbeyond down-ballot races in Arkansas. sas — three groups that have abandoned In Arkansas’s much-discussed 2nd the president en masse. It may be that Congressional District, we found mixed the power base of the state’s Democratic results for the slate of Democratic can- Party is shifting — or perhaps has already didates vying to challenge Rep. French shifted — to Northwest Arkansas. Hill. The president captured “only” 54 Before we get too ahead of ourselves percent of the 2nd District vote in 2016 in the 3rd, however, it should be noted — his worst performance by far in any of that its PVI is R+19, making it one of the state’s congressional districts. But the most conservative districts in the this says more about his overall strength U.S. But PVI’s usefulness is limited in in Arkansas than it does about any par- districts like the 3rd, where serious ticular weakness in the district. Democratic challengers are few and To our surprise, we found the presi- far between. It’s calculated using the dent’s approval rating to be nearly 58 presidential vote share from the two percent in the 2nd District — the high- previous election cycles, and the 3rd est mark in the state. When breaking the hasn’t had a Democratic candidate runresults down by state legislative districts ning against Republican U.S. Rep. Steve within the 2nd, it’s clear why: The collar Womack in either of those elections. counties surrounding Pulaski have held Joshua Mahoney, the 3rd District’s steady in their support for the president. lone Democratic candidate on the balWe checked our results against The lot, wasn’t surprised by our findings. Partisan Voter Index calculated by the “I’ve never seen anything like this in Cook Political Report, which largely my life in Northwest Arkansas. People confirmed our findings. Cook rates want change. They want someone who Arkansas’s 2nd District as an R+7 district, is present and accountable to the dismeaning it’s considered seven points trict, and they’re tired of feeling cut out more Republican than the nation as a of the process. Every county we visit, whole. To put it in a broader context, every group we meet with, the turnout the district is slightly less conserva- has been incredible,” Mahoney told me. tive than the Pennsylvania 18th (R+11) It’s also important to note that Arkanbeing contested by Connor Lamb this sas’s congressional districts — despite week and the Georgia 6th (R+8) that Jon being set by Democrats — have been Ossof contested last year. It’s the kind of drawn in the most favorable configuradistrict that becomes a longshot possi- tion imaginable for Republicans. The bility for Democrats in a wave election. FiveThirtyEight’s Redistricting Project But the biggest surprise in our analy- tested eight potential methods for drawsis came in the 3rd Congressional Dis- ing each of the nation’s 435 House District, which we found to be at least as tricts and, in Arkansas, they couldn’t competitive as the 2nd. There, we esti- devise a more favorable map for the state’s mate that Trump performed extraor- Republican Party. In the 1st and 4th disdinarily well in 2016, winning 67 per- tricts — and perhaps even in the 2nd and cent of the vote. But in the 17 months 3rd — conservatives have a firewall against since his election, President Trump’s the blue wave of the Democratic Party.

CANNABIZ

Pot Rx panel sued

he f i r s t law s u it over tends there were “wide-ranging disthe state Medical Marijuana crepancies” and “outright violations” in Commission›s scoring of the the applications of the top five scorers top five applicants for culti- — Natural State Medicinals, Bold Team vation permits under the new medical LLC, Delta Medical Cannabis, Natumarijuana law was filed Tuesday. ral State Wellness and Osage Creek The suit, by Naturalis Health of Cultivation. Little Rock, asks for an injunction The suit also argues bias or conflicts against award of the permits. The of interest on the part of commissioners. suit was assigned to Pulaski County Specific shortcomings included a resiCircuit Judge Wendell Griffen. Defen- dency requirement, tax liabilities and dants are the state Department of Fi- distance from a church or school of nance and Administration, the Alcohol- proposed facilities. ic Beverage Control Division and the The suit notes that Commissioner marijuana commission. Travis Story graded the application It’s possible the state could raise of a legal client, and that he and other a sovereign immunity arg ument commissioners didn’t have the reqagainst the lawsuit, given a recent uisite experience for the task. An state Supreme Court decision. Gov- independent committee of industry ernor Hutchinson, however, has experts should have done the scoring, instructed executive agencies not to the suit says. use the defense without his permisThe suit lists numerous cases of sion. A judge conceivably could raise corporate charters revoked for nonthe issue on his own. payment of franchise taxes. But Naturalis Health, which finished the DFA has already responded 38th in the scoring, says decisions were to a complaint on this point, saymade arbitrarily and in violation of the ing the rule on deficiencies applies Administrative Procedures Act. It con- to individuals, not corporations.

The suit also faulted scoring. It noted, The suit objects to the commission’s for example, that no points were plan to ratify permits at a meeting that deducted on qualifications from the was scheduled for Wednesday withtop scorer, Natural State Medicinals, out a hearing or opportunity for pubdespite the admission that two own- lic comment. Absent a review by the ers had paid regulatory agency fines commission, a review by the court is of more than $10,000. appropriate, the complaint says. “The most blatant irregularity in The complaint was signed by Jay scoring was Chairperson [Rhonda] Bequette of Bequette and BilllingsTillman’s use of a different scoresheet, ley. The owners of Naturalis LLC are unlike the uniform scoresheet used by not identified, but they are believed the other four Commissioners. Tillman to include Jackson T. Stephens III, appears to have provided no numeri- grandson of the founder of the Stecal scores for several categories,” the phens financial empire, who invested suit says. heavily in the successful campaign to The suit also airs a complaint about get the medical marijuana amendment the extraordinarily high score Commis- on the ballot. Henry Willmuth is an sioner Carlos Roman gave the top score, organizer of the Naturalis LLC. Natural State Medicinals. It alleges that In the days following the permit Dr. Scott Schlesinger, who owns 5.66 announcements, the commission percent in NSM, and Roman “have an and the state Ethics Commission extremely close personal and profes- have received complaints about scorsional relationship.” Roman scored ing, the manner in which companies NSM’s application at a 98 out of 100, were incorporated, the relationships but his average score for the remain- between commissioners and applicants, ing applications was 55.55 out of 100. the lack of minority awards and an The complaint recounted in detail allegation of misinformation about an a conflict first reported in the Arkan- employee. sas Times: Commissioner Story’s past Retired Arkansas Court of Appeals legal work for the Trulove family of Judge Olly Neal, Mildred Griggs of MarBerryville, owners of Osage Creek Cul- ianna and River Valley Relief Cultivativation. tion made the complaints.

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Arkansas Reporter

THE

The post-prison license hurdle Arkansas is trying to make it easier for those released from ADC to get licenses and IDs. But challenges remain. BY JACOB ROSENBERG

gram. “[Then] you got to get the license to get the job. And, just, that’s hard. That is hard. “If it wasn’t for this program — no way in the world I would’ve been able to save up $1,500 like that just to give them for an ID, for a little card.” The $1,500 was needed to pay off old fines, a common problem for those leaving prison. Courts from across the state notify Driver Control in the Department of

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

or Timothy Jones to obtain a new driver’s license — his first in 14 years — it required a payment of $1,500 in old fines, a month of nearly daily calls to multiple courts throughout the state, a birth certificate, a prison release statement and a copy of his old ID. “That was it,” Jones, 33, says with a laugh. Like many people recently released from the Arkansas Department of Correction, the Malvern native was told getting an ID would be a crucial first step to life after incarceration. But he was also told it would be difficult. Despite identification often being necessary for employment, transportation, social benefits, cashing a check, opening a bank account, and even most food pantries, it’s usually a costly, bureaucratic process to obtain one. This is especially true for a driver’s license, crucial in a state like Arkansas without much public transit. Reasons for difficulty vary from person to person. But Jones’ story of getting his driver’s license shows how the process frequently requires money, organization and persistence. He considers himself among the lucky. Before his parole, Jones was able to get a job at the Essick Air store, and transportation to work, because of his participation in Hidden Creek, an Arkansas Community Corrections reentry program in Little Rock. It allowed him to put money in savings before his full release. Most paroled in Arkansas only get a card with $125 upon release to restart life. “That’s all they give you and tell you to be on about your way,” Jones said of those not in the Hidden Creek pro-

AT LAST: Timothy Jones got a driver’s license, but it took payment of fees and weeks of phone calls.

Finance and Administration of outstanding debts from traffic tickets and court costs, placing a hold on license issuing. Those debts can be formidable for persons looking to make a new start. “It started off like $500 that I owed,” Jones told the Arkansas Times. He’d misplaced his license a few years after getting it in 2004 and didn’t get a new one and didn’t renew. He kept driving, quickly racking up fees. “And it just started going up, up, up, up.” But to work, he had to drive. To drive, he risked another ticket. Even before his recent incarceration (for possession of a handgun), it became unimaginable that he would be able to pay. He went to the state Revenue Office a month before his arrest and asked the attendant how much it would cost to get a new license; the man laughed when he looked it up, the number was so high. But after his incarceration, Jones was committed to re-entry. He worked and saved to bite away at the debt. Eventually, he paid it all off. He then called Driver Control eager to hear that there were no longer holds on his license. The office said there was still a hold from Hot Springs. He called the traffic court in Hot Springs, and it told him he owed nothing. He also called the traffic court in Malvern, in Hot Spring County, where he’d been fined before. That court told him he’d paid down his fines. But Driver Control records still showed a hold, and wanted verification on a form that Jones owed no fines. The Hot Springs court told him they didn’t have a form for such action. “I was working on this for about a good month by myself,” Jones remembers. “And [Hidden Creek staff] tried to help me, give me information — but it was really nothing [they] could do. So, I just stayed on it, stayed on it, stayed on it.” Courts would be closed. People wouldn’t pick up. Administrators would be rude to him. “I mean, it was just so frustrating, because when I get home from work, I am tired, too, like everybody. And there’s a line of people right here,” Jones said, pointing to one of a few phones in the hallway where many at Hidden Creek wait to communicate. “And by that time anyway, even when I’m off, everybody

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is gone ... [the court’s] closed.” But after a month, an administrator in the Malvern court grew tired of him calling, Jones said. She called Driver Control, she called Hot Springs, and she got that court to remove the hold. (She told him there had been a typo on the ticket: It was given in Hot Spring County but the ticket said “Hot Springs.”) Rachael Borné, re-entry program manager at Our House, where she helps those leaving prison, said the process for dealing with court systems is often an issue. “We’ll work with clients who have languishing failure to appear, failures to pay, traffic tickets from many different counties. That requires them to call all of those counties, making an official request via mail or fax to get information. Then complete various requirements for each of the counties, [with] various payment methods. So, it is just almost impossible for any person to wrap their head around that,” she said. Borné said there are other financial obligations beside old fines and fees: the $35 a month fees parolees have to make (more if paid online); any classes required as part of release; the need to find housing. “This theme of navigating a system not having one set path repeats itself over and over in the world of re-entry. Because it’s a person having to make their way through these overlapping systems of law enforcement, of the court system, of social services, of public benefits. And they all in some ways inhibit each other, so it’s never the same answer for one client on how they’re going to get an ID,” she said. “It’s really hard to figure out what you need to do.” A new law on the books partially addresses the license problem. State Rep. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock) successfully introduced a bill that allows persons released from prison whose driver’s licenses had been suspended to get restricted licenses that allow them to drive to work, school and other approved places. Persons on parole or probation and inmates 180 days from release may get the restricted driver’s despite outstanding fines or fees. Though it would not have addressed Jones’ problem — his license was expired — it makes a difference for those whose

THE

Inconsequential News Quiz:

BIG ‘I hope this offends PICTURE

someone’ edition

Play at home, you one-humped dromedary! 1) The Little Rock Zoo recently welcomed three animals to the zoo. What are the critters? A) Common Trumpian Dumazzes. B) Pulaski County Snitches. C) One-humped dromedary camels. D) Lesser Kardashians. 2) Recently, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee resigned his position with a certain board only one day after joining. What was the board from which the Huckster resigned? A) Weight Watchers. B) Sarah Huckabee Sanders Fan Club. C) Assholes Anonymous. D) The County Music Association Foundation board. 3) Why did Huckabee resign? A) Told a “joke” to a man in Reno, just to watch him die. B) Screwed up and let someone hear him play bass. C) All hat, no cattle. D) Widespread criticism due to his divisive, homophobic rhetoric, including a note to the CMA from Jason Owen — a gay husband and father who represents big names like Little Big Town and Faith Hill — who called Huckabee’s appointment “grossly offensive” and said he and the artists he represents would no longer support the CMA Foundation as long as Huckabee was on the board. 4) A man who police say tried to flee from a traffic stop in Little Rock went with a rather foolhardy method to evade the long arm of the law. What, according to police, did he do? A) Disguised himself as a potted plant and attempted to hide in a dentist’s office. B) Quickly painted a faux tunnel entrance on a brick wall and then dashed into it, Wile E. Coyote style. C) Doubled back and tried to steal the officer’s police horse. D) Leapt from the second story of the downtown parking garage, landing with a mighty splat on the concrete below and injuring himself badly enough that he wound up in critical condition at a local hospital. 5) The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville recently held a town hall-style meeting to address an outcry after a UA freshman posted an offensive photo to the social media site Snapchat. What did the photo depict? A) The white student in Al Jolson-style blackface with — in what is surely one of the great “be careful what you wish for” moments in UA history — the caption: “I hope this offends someone.” B) A greased-up Donald Trump chasing a porn star through a KFC restaurant. C) Bret Bielema rolling around nekkid in his $11.9 million contract buyout. D) Razorback mascot Tusk snorting crystal meth off a toilet tank lid.

Answers: C, D, D, D, A

LISTEN UP

CONTINUED ON PAGE 52

arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

Let’s eat

HERE’S OUR READERS CHOICE MENU OF WHERE TO GO.

BRIAN CHILSON

t’s a tough business, the restaurant industry. Over the 37 years that the Arkansas Times has asked its readers to tell us which restaurants and bakeries, chefs and bartenders, hamburgers and

home cookin’ and such are the best, even the favorites have come and gone.

You’ll find that some long-established eateries and food folk just keeping hauling in the plaudits: Peter Brave for Brave New Restaurant. Community Bakery. Fantastic China. But there are plenty of new places to dine and newer places proving they can hang in there. Petit & Keet, open for nine months, took best restaurant overall as well as best new, best steak and best wine list (and tied with Rolando’s Restaurante in Hot

Springs for most mentions: 11). District Fare, founded last year, got the nod for best butcher, deli and sandwich; Bark Bar got its license last year and collared the dog friendly category. The Hive in Bentonville continues to thrive, with eight mentions; Big Orange with seven; Boulevard Bread Co. with six. So here, readers, find your culinary choices, in dozens of categories and all around Arkansas.

The 2018 Readers Choice

WINNERS:

Overall LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Petit & Keet Finalists: Brave New Restaurant, The Pantry, Samantha’s Tap Room, Soul Fish Cafe

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs) Finalists: DeLuca’s Pizzeria Napoletana (Hot Springs), The Hive (Bentonville), Mike’s Place (Conway), Tamale Factory (Gregory)

New LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Petit & Keet Finalists: Buenos Aires Grill and Cafe, District Fare, KamiKaito, Southern Table

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: John Daly Steakhouse (Conway) Finalists: The Griffin (El Dorado), Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot), Tour of India (Conway), Wunderhaus (Conway)

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

SHARING THE CREDIT: Petit & Keet owner Jim Keet says the loyal staff and family atmosphere accounts for the restaurant’s success.

Big on Petit & Keet

Readers give it several awards; Keet credits the loyal staff.

f you have a wild patterned shirt in the fashion that Louis Petit is known to wear, you might be able to win a free dinner at Petit & Keet, when the “father of fine dining” in Little Rock checks in on the restaurant at 1620 Market St. That’s partner Jim Keet’s idea, a fun sort of notion that comes to a person who thinks of the restaurant as one big happy family. The restaurant’s success is due to so many in the big family, Keet said in a recent interview, that he did not want to be the focus of attention regarding this Readers Choice winner in the best restaurant, best new restaurant, best wine and best steak categories, as well as a finalist for best chef, burger, dessert, outdoor dining, pie and, right on target, in the most fun category. Petit & Keet’s (they rhyme) success “isn’t about me,” Keet said, but co-owners Petit, Keet’s sons, the general man-

ager, the assistant general manager, the chef, the bartender, the sommelier … and so on. “At this stage in my career,” Keet said, “those relationships mean more to me.” But Petit was out of town and sons Jake and Tommy were busy with the other family businesses — Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe, Paninis and Co. and KO Construction — and weren’t available with for a sit-down. So it fell to Jim Keet to talk about how the Belgian Petit, whose good name goes back to Restaurant Jacques and Suzanne’s, and Keet, a businessman and “recovering politician” who brought Wendy’s to Arkansas in the 1970s and has been in the restaurant business since, came up with what has Arkansas Times’ readers so gung-ho. It was about this time of the year five years ago when Petit — who has the restaurant Louis Louis in Santa

Rosa, Fla. — and Keet got together in Keet’s condo in Destin over a bottle of Corton-Charlemagne white burgundy (and then another bottle of wine, and another), when Keet told Petit they ought to open a restaurant together. Petit agreed, and they opened another bottle of wine, “but we remember the conversation clearly,” Keet said. Later they talked about what to call the restaurant. Keet’s original idea was Petit & Keet, but then they bounced around Cafe Americain (as in “Casablanca”) and other names. But, rightly, they decided that putting their wellrecognized names on the restaurant was the right note to strike. It is the 150th restaurant Keet has been affiliated with, and the first to bear his name. The Keets and Petit also agreed that, except in extreme circumstances, one of the owners will always be at the restaurant, and they have fulfilled that commitment all but three days in the nine months Petit & Keet has been open. Here are the things that make the restaurant a favorite among Times’ readers: • The eclectic menu, which includes charred salmon, rice hoecakes, pork chops and sweet potatoes, bison burgers and such. Price points run the gamut, too: The menu and setting attract people straight from the tennis courts or folks gussied up to cel-

ebrate their wedding anniversaries. This reporter, touring the kitchen, got to see panko-crusted avocado quarters on their way to the frying pan where they would meet crab ceviche, wasabi, chiles and cilantro, a dish that a Times reviewer called “fabulous.” • The bars. There are two: the large one, lit by bulbous Edison lights strung from a steel pole with rope, where during our visit the bartender was meticulously deseeding lemon slices that he would candy, dip in chocolate and add to a new drink, the Mole´, Mole´, Mole´. There is also an intimate and sophisticated wine bar off the front dining room, where the lucky waitstaff was gathered by the sommelier for a little education on — read tasting of — several kinds of wine so they could better inform the customers. • The layout. Petit & Keet gutted the former 1620 Savoy (which was also Petit’s Maison Louis in an earlier incarnation) and added a linear dining area along the front behind garage doors that can lift to create a patio. There’s a private dining room between the large bar and the patio, separated only by glass doors engraved with a PK. There’s another larger truly outdoor patio, heated by a water feature surrounded by flame, heaters hidden under chairs and one above that Keet said could heat half the city; there’s also a retractable roof. Bocce ball and baggo courts are off the courtyard. Chic black tables and chrome and leather chairs and gray couches are throughout. It’s a look that the customer defines — there are no white tablecloths, so if you feel casual, so does Petit & Keet. But sophisticates will feel right at home amid the sleek lines that feel as classy as what they’ve found in bigger cities. Asked about the construction budget, Keet would say only that they ran “$1.4 million over budget.” The sectional layout of Petit & Keet allows for party rentals, and Keet said the restaurant will start catering in May. • The staff. Keet said Petit & Keet’s 72 employees, from kitchen to bar to table, are loyal; with only three exceptions, all who opened the restaurant are still there. Keet is pleased with the praise given Petit & Keet, but said, “When I’ll be happy is when 20 years from now it’s still getting accolades.” —Leslie Newell Peacock arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

BRIAN CHILSON

BEST MEX: La Hacienda, newly remodeled last year, was a favorite with readers. The Camarones Veracruz is one of our favorites.

Chef

Winner: Community Bakery Finalists: Boulevard Bread Co., Dempsey Bakery, Honey Pies, Rosalia’s Family Bakery

LITTLE ROCK

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Peter Brave (Brave New Restaurant) Finalists: Matthew Bell (South on Main), Steven Binotti (Petit & Keet), Donnie Ferneau (Cathead’s Diner), Scott McGehee (Big Orange, Heights Taco & Tamale Co., Local Lime, Lost Forty, ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co.)

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Matthew McClure (The Hive, Bentonville) Finalists: Matthew Cooper (The Preacher’s Son, Bentonville), Michael Dampier (The Ohio Club, Hot Springs), Rob Nelson (Tusk & Trotter, Bentonville), Anthony Valinoti (DeLuca’s, Hot Springs)

Bakery LITTLE ROCK 18

MARCH 15, 2018

Winner: PattiCakes Bakery (Conway) Finalists: Ambrosia Bakery (Hot Springs), Julie’s Sweet Shoppe & Bakery (Conway), Rick’s Bakery (Fayetteville), SugarDumplin’s Cupcakes (Bryant)

Barista LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Jeremy Bragg (River City Coffee) Finalists: Lizi Arnett (Honey Pies), Kara Bibb (Boulevard Bread Co.), Molly Brantley (Boulevard), Zarah Williams (Mugs Cafe)

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Whole Hog Cafe Finalists: Corky’s BBQ, Cross-Eyed Pig, HB’s Bar-B-Q, Sims Bar-B-Que

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Fat Daddy’s Bar-B-Que (Conway) Finalists: Craig’s Bar-B-Q (DeValls Bluff), Hog Pen BBQ (Conway), McClard’s Bar-BQ Restaurant (Hot Springs), Penguin Ed’s Bar-B-Que (Fayetteville)

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Taj Mahal Finalists: Al Seraj Mediterranean Restaurant, Golden Corral, Star of India Restaurant and Bar, Tokyo House

AROUND THE STATE

Brunch Barbecue

Buffet

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: @ the Corner Finalists: Lost Forty Brewing, Red Door, The Root Cafe, YaYa’s Euro Bistro

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: The Hive (Bentonville) Finalists: The Arlington Hotel (Hot Springs), Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville), ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway)

Winner: Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc) Finalists: Abe’s Ole Feed House (Benton), Brown’s Catfish (Russellville), Hibachi Sushi Buffet (Hot Springs), Mulan (Conway)

Burger LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Big Orange Finalists: David’s Burgers, Doe’s Eat Place, Petit & Keet, The Root Cafe

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: David’s Burgers (Conway) Finalists: Big Orange (Springdale), CJ’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

ARKANSAS TIMES

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

BEST ITALIAN WINNER BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS,

again and since 1949, when they first brought Italian pizza to Little Rock.

310 Main St. in Downtown Little Rock (501) 372-7866 â&#x20AC;¢ 5 - 10 PM, Tues. - Sat. FREE Valet Parking

Thank You FOR YOUR VOTE AND SUPPORT!

BEST STEAK BEST WINE LIST

BEST SEAFOOD 27 RAHLING CIRCLE (501) 821-1838

ARTHURSPRIMESTEAKHOUSE.COM

BEST JAPANESE 2601 KAVANAUGH BLVD (501) 660-4100 KEMURIRESTAURANT.COM

arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

BRIAN CHILSON

NUEVO LATINO: A Rolando’s server delivers handmade tamales, Camarones Bohemios and Pollo Chucaqui.

Chiquintad meets Spa City Rolando’s Restaurante is Ecuadorian — sort of.

iven the longtime pres- ket of tortilla chips; black beans and ence of Spanish-speaking mango sitting in for a brownish pool communities in Arkansas, of lard-infused pintos; and in place of you’d think those cultures those anglicized Tex-Mex condiments and foodways would have been rep- — chopped iceberg, diced Romas, shredresented on our restaurant menus ded cheddar — pickled red onions, lime with a bit more nuance a bit sooner. and tufts of cilantro. It’s entirely possible, though — espeCount Rolando’s Restaurante among cially if you grew up in Arkansas in the those spots opening eyes and taste buds 1970s or ’80s — to have imagined all to Latin American foods, specifically, food from south of the Rio Grande as those that chef Rolando Cuzco grew some monolithic slab of refried beans, up with in his native Chiquintad near sour cream, melty cheese and reddish Cuenca, Ecuador. At the restaurant’s rice. And, for those most benighted three locations in Hot Springs, Fayamong us, it took the advent of the etteville and Fort Smith, Cuzco; his street taco era, among other culinary wife, Sherri; and their son, Trey Overdevelopments, to teach us just how ton, have built and sustained a menu many shapes Latin American foods over the last 17 years that nods to the can take: a plate of grilled cactus leaves Ozarks, the Ouachitas and the Ecuadorin lieu of an eat-’til-you-keel-over bas- ian Andes in the same breath.

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

“Some people hear that Rolando’s Overton is now the general manfrom Ecuador,” Overton said, “and ager of the Hot Springs location of so the idea gets out that this is Ecua- Rolando’s on Bathhouse Row (Cendorian food, but it’s really not.” It’s tral Ave.) in Hot Springs, but as is the “Nuevo Latino,” he said, “a combina- case with most family-owned restaution of things from Cuba, Argentina, rants, he remembers being recruited Ecuador, San Salvador. There are some to help around the dish pit and the Ecuadorian-inspired dishes here, like bus tubs since he was much younger. our soups, and our chicken dishes.” The He’s made the trip to Ecuador seven or Argentinian sauce, the shrimp, chicken eight times with Cuzco, who became and tortilla soups, the tamales, the salsa his stepfather after his mother’s and (which was once made with black-eyed Cuzco’s business partnership took a peas instead of black beans), the Carib- romantic turn. Cuzco’s got “a lot of bean rum cake and the beloved “Rolan- family down there,” Overton told us, do’s Bananas” are all made from scratch. “so he goes down there for a couple of “You know, you can go anywhere in months at a time. He does a lot with town and find Tex-Mex restaurants. the community down there, with the And as soon as they come in here and Catholic Church.” just glance at the menu, they realize, I asked Overton how, or whether, ‘OK, this is a little bit different.’ ” the menu has shifted over the years to

BRIAN CHILSON

accommodate Arkansas tastes. “Most of what we have on the menu has been here since day one,” Overton said. There are some additions on the horizon, though, for folks looking for fajitas, sopapillas, taco salads, cheesecake or are — as Arkansans are geared to be — in search of beef. “We always said we would never serve beef, because they don’t really eat beef in Ecuador. They have cows, but they’re primarily used for milk. Mainly chicken and a lot of pork.” On a chilly Saturday afternoon, nearly every table on the patio was occupied. A trio of Josefina’s Handmade Tamales with chicken, pork and chili cheese arrived in folded corn husks atop black beans, encircled by decorative swirls of jalapeno and mole sauces. Encircled, too, were all the patrons — the upstairs patio has the distinction of being situated cliffside in the mountain valley. A winding staircase leads visitors up to a cavernous grove, surrounded by ivy and — at the rear tables — soundtracked by a tiny trickle of water coming down the mountainside. It’s a postcard for Hot Springs National Park, and despite the bite in the air, most diners had opted for eating al fresco in lieu of the adjacent “Speakeasy” dining room to take in the lush scenery. Christmas lights were

AL FRESCO: Even on a chilly Saturday afternooon, the cliffside patio at Rolando’s was a perfect spot to enjoy the camarones.

wrapped around the trees and the small stage where live music is played, and tall pines towered overhead on the top of the rock face. A plate of the spot’s “Camarones Bohemios,” large tail-on shrimp sauteed in a lime and tequila sauce with sweet peppers and onions and seasoned with cilantro and parsley, came on a bed of fluffy white rice, with black beans, crema, pickled red onion and lightly

pickled cucumbers. In anticipation of warmer months to come, we ordered a pomegranatemango margarita, a peachy pink affair served in a large beer mug, rimmed with salt and lime. We opted, too, for the “Pollo Chuchaqui,” at Overton’s recommendation, and it wasn’t hard to see why the dish was a favorite for regulars. Rolando’s seems to pay particular attention to the way chicken is tenderized

and seared, and the result is splendid; two chicken tenderloins pounded thin enough to pass as breasts, grilled and topped with a lime and wine sauce with Roma tomatoes, celery (for those who don’t enjoy celery, don’t worry — it’s inconspicuous) and onion. Those dishes, Overton told us, are probably the most quintessentially Ecuadorian. “If you go down to Ecuador, a lot of dishes that they serve are gonna be a chicken dish, with a breast and side items. We just kind of put a different style of sauce on ’em.” On the list for a return visit: “We have people that drive all around for our tilapia dish,” Overton said. That’s “Pescado de Mesias,” grilled and topped with a tequila and caper sauce. And, of course, the rum cake with toasted pecans. “We actually got that recipe from the Grand Cayman Islands,” Overton said. “We took a vacation there when I was younger — 10, 12. It was actually a town called Hell, and they had these little slices of rum cake. And T-shirts that said, ‘I’ve been to Hell and back,’ stuff like that.” When you visit the Hot Springs location, don’t miss the paintings on the walls and the silhouettes carved into the facade above the exposed brick — all original works by Rolando Cuzco. —Stephanie Smittle

Congratulations To All The Readers Choice Award Winners and Finalists.

arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

THANKS FOR VOTING US BEST BURGERS, CATFISH, FRIES AND STEAK!

Lunch: Mon- Fri 11am-2pm Dinner: Mon-Thur 5:30-9:30pm • Fri & Sat 5:30-10pm FULL BAR & PRIVATE PARTY ROOM

1023 West Markham • Downtown Little Rock 501-376-1195 • www.doeseatplace.net

Butcher Boy Burgers (Russellville), Hugo’s (Fayetteville), Mike’s Place (Conway)

AROUND THE STATE

Business lunch LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Capital Bar & Grill Finalists: Brave New Restaurant, Cache Restaurant, Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill, Soul Fish Cafe

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Mike’s Place (Conway) Finalists: Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

Butcher LITTLE ROCK

Open for Dinner 5 pm to 9pm Every Night

Thank you Arkansas for voting us the Best Restaurant in Eureka Springs! Award Winning Ermilio’s is family friendly, with dozens of authentic Italian choices served in a casual, comfortable, just-like-home atmosphere. No reservations are taken…Come as you are!

(479) 253-8806

BEST ITALIAN AROUND THE STATE

BEST RESTAURANT IN EUREKA SPRINGS

26 White Street • Eureka Springs Located on the upper Historic Loop, old Highway 62B, just a few short blocks from the Crescent Hotel. www.ermilios.com

Bread Co.; Guillermo’s Coffee, Tea & Roastery; Starbucks

Winner: District Fare Finalists: Edwards Food Giant, Fresh Market, Hogg’s Meat Market, Tommy’s Country Meats (Maumelle)

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Paul’s Meat Market (Fort Smith) Finalists: Butcher & Pint (Bentonville), Richard’s Meat Market (Fayetteville), Weldon’s Meat Market (Hot Springs)

Catfish

Winner: Onyx Coffee Lab (Fayetteville) Finalists: Arsaga’s Fayetteville Coffee Roasters, Blue Sail Coffee (Conway), Jitterbug Coffeehouse (Heber Springs), Round Mountain Coffee (Conway)

Deli/gourmet to go LITTLE ROCK

Winner: District Fare Finalists: Boulevard Bread Co., Catering to You, Community Bakery, Jason’s Deli

Desserts LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Honey Pies Finalists: Community Bakery, Loblolly Creamery, Petit & Keet, Trio’s

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: PattiCakes Bakery (Conway) Finalists: Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Julie’s Sweet Shoppe & Bakery (Conway), Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs)

Dog friendly LITTLE ROCK

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Eat My Catfish Finalists: Doe’s Eat Place, Flying Fish, Lassis Inn, Soul Fish Cafe

Winner: Bark Bar Finalists: The Fold: Botanas and Bar, The Root Cafe, Stone’s Throw Brewery, U.S. Pizza Hillcrest

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Eat My Catfish (Benton) Finalists: Cafe Rue Orleans (Fayetteville), The Catfish Hole (Fayetteville), Flying Fish (Bentonville), Woods Place (Camden)

Winner: Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs) Finalists: Apple Blossom Brewery (Fayetteville), Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), Stoby’s (Conway), The Farmer’s Table (Fayetteville)

Chinese LITTLE ROCK

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Full Bar 1920 N. Grant St. | 501.663.5951 www.boulevardbread.com A huge thank you for voting us your favorite!

BEST BAKERY BEST BARISTA: MOLLY BRANTLEY BEST BARISTA: KARA BIBB BEST COFFEE BEST DELI/GOURMET TO GO BEST FRENCH FRIES BEST SANDWICH St Patrick’s Day

We will be serving corn beef and cabbage and half price pints 22

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Food truck

Winner: Fantastic China Finalists: Chi’s Chinese Cuisine, Mr. Chen’s Authentic Chinese Cooking, Fu Lin Chinese Restaurant, Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co.

Winner: Excaliburger Finalists: Hot Rod Weiners, Katmandu MoMo, Truckin’ Delicious, Wunderbus

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: China Town (Conway) Finalists: Mulan (Conway), Jade China Restaurant (Conway), Madame Wu’s Hunan Restaurant (Russellville), Wok Express (Hot Springs)

Coffee LITTLE ROCK

Winner: River City Coffee Finalists: Blue Sail Coffee; Boulevard

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Truckin’ Delicious (Fort Smith) Finalists: Big Sexy Food (Fayetteville), Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), Say Cheese (Austin), Wild Ginger (Conway)

French fries LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Big Orange Finalists: @ the Corner, Boulevard Bistro, David’s Burgers, Doe’s Eat Place

BRIAN CHILSON

With sincere thanks... OPENING SOON for voting us one of the OPENING SOON OPENING SOON BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

BEST NEW RESTAURANT

GOOD GOOD FRIENDS FRIENDS SHARING SHARING GREAT FOOD MAKES LIFE GOOD FRIENDS SHARING GREAT FOOD MAKES LIFE More Delicious

More GREAT FOODDelicious MAKES LIFE

More Delicious

ARTISAN ARTISAN ARTISAN

TOP CHARCUTERIE: Southern Table was a finalist for best new restaurant.

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Big Orange (Springdale) Finalists: David’s Burgers (Conway), Feltner’s Whatta-Burger (Russellville), Hugo’s (Fayetteville), Stoby’s (Conway)

Fried chicken LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken Finalists: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Maddie’s Place, Slim Chickens, South on Main

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Monte Ne Inn (Rogers) Finalists: A.Q. Chicken House (Fayetteville), Holly’s Country Cooking (Conway), Old South Restaurant (Russellville), Slim Chickens (Conway)

Fun LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Dave & Buster’s Finalists: All Aboard, Big Orange, The Fold: Botanas and Bar, Petit & Keet

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Silks Bar and Grill at Oaklawn (Hot Springs) Finalists: Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse (Eureka Springs), The Hive (Bentonville), Mike’s Place (Conway)

Gluten-free LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Dempsey Bakery Finalists: Baja Grill, Big Orange, The Root Cafe, Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe

Healthy LITTLE ROCK

Winner: The Root Cafe Finalists: Green Leaf Grill, Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe, Three Fold Noodles and

& & &

CHEESES CHEESES CHEESES

• • •

BEER BEER BEER

& & &

WINE WINE WINE

• • •

DIPPING DIPPING DIPPING

OILS OILS OILS

& & &

SPREADS SPREADS SPREADS

DeLuca’s ’s

A RT I S A N M E AT S & C H E E S E S • B E E R & W I N E • D I P P I N G O I L S & S P R E A D S A RT I S A N M E AT S & C H E E S E S • B E E R & W I N E • D I P P I N G O I L S & S P R E A D S

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs) Finalists: Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), The Preacher’s Son (Bentonville), Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe (Bentonville), ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway)

M E AT S M E AT S M E AT S

BEST PIZZA AROUND THE STATE

Arkansas

Arkansas Brick Oven Pizza

AROUND THE STATE: BEST CHEF, ANTHONY VALINOTI BEST IN HOT SPRINGS BEST ITALIAN BEST OVERALL

407 Park Ave. • Hot Springs (501) 609-9002 • delucashotsprings.com DeLuca’s Pizzeria Napoletana

@DeLucasPizzeriaNapoletana

CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

Dumpling Co., ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co.

Franke’s Cafeteria, Sandy’s Homeplace Cafe, Soul Fish Cafe

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Taziki’s (Conway) Finalists: Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), The Farmer’s Table (Fayetteville), Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs), ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway)

Winner: Holly’s Country Cooking (Conway) Finalists: Home Plate Diner (Bryant), Mary’s Kitchen (Russellville), Monte Ne Inn (Rogers), Old South Restaurant (Russellville), Wagon Wheel Restaurant (Greenbrier)

Winner: Loblolly Creamery Finalists: Le Pops Gourmet Iced Lollies, Kilwins, Scoop Dog Frozen Custard, Shake’s Frozen Custard

AROUND THE STATE

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Taj Mahal Finalists: 4square Cafe and Gifts, Banana Leaf Indian Cuisine, The Indian Feast, Star of India Restaurant and Bar

Winner: ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway) Finalists: Andy’s Frozen Custard (Conway), Freddo’s Frozen Treats (Russellville), Frozen Delite (Searcy), Uncle Louie G (Fort Smith)

AROUND THE STATE

Indian

Italian

Winner: Tour of India (Conway) Finalists: Chennai Cafe (Bentonville), Curry Point (Bentonville), India Orchard (Bentonville), New Delhi Cafe & Patio (Eureka Springs)

Home cookin’ LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Homer’s Restaurant Finalists: Bobby’s Country Cookin’,

Ice cream/cool treats LITTLE ROCK

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Bruno’s Little Italy Finalists: Cafe Prego, Ciao Italian Restaurant, Ristorante Capeo, Vesuvio Bistro

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE

2018 READER’S CHOICE WINNERS FROM

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Pasta Grill (Conway) Finalists: Bocca Italian eatery & pizzeria (Fayetteville), DeLuca’s Pizzeria (Hot Springs), Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking (Eureka Springs), Tavola Trattoria (Bentonville)

Japanese LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Kemuri Finalists: KamiKaito, Kobe Japanese Steakhouse, Mt. Fuji Japanese Restaurant, Sushi Cafe

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Umami Sushi Lounge & Grill Fusion (Conway) Finalists: Crazy Samurai (Hot Springs), Meiji Japanese Cuisine (Fayetteville), Sumo Sushi and Steak (Bryant), Sushi Cafe (Searcy)

Mexican LITTLE ROCK

Winner: La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant Finalists: The Fold: Botanas and Bar, Heights Taco & Tamale Co., Local Lime, Taqueria El Palenque

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: El Acapulco (Conway) Finalists: La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant (Hot Springs), Patron Mexican Grill (Conway), Table Mesa (Bentonville), Taco Mama (Hot Springs)

Other ethnic LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Buenos Aires Grill and Cafe Finalists: kBird, Layla’s Gyros and Pizzeria, La Terraza Rum & Lounge, Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe ©2018 BEAM SUNTORY INC. CHICAGO, IL. ALL TRADEMARKS ARE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

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NEW BEN E. KEITH FOODS FACILITY NOW OPEN IN NORTH LITTLE ROCK Ben E. Keith Food has opened its newest distribution center in North Little Rock. The new LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certified facility includes a 348,000-square foot warehouse, 78,850 square feet of office and maintenance, and 350 full-time employees. The center will distribute in Arkansas, Southern Missouri, Northern Louisiana, Mississippi, and Central-Western Tennessee.

www.benekeith.com

READERS

CHOICE

A ARDS 2018 SPONSOR

▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲ arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs) Finalists: A Taste of Thai (Fayetteville), Little Greek (Fayetteville), Pho Vietnam (Fort Smith), Steinhaus Keller (Hot Springs), Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe (Bentonville)

Outdoor dining LITTLE ROCK

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs) Finalists: Cliff House Inn (Jasper), Fisherman’s Wharf (Hot Springs), Mike’s Place (Conway), Patio Cafe (Conway)

Pie

Winner: U.S. Pizza Hillcrest Finalists: Brave New Restaurant, Buenos Aires Grill and Cafe, La Terraza Rum & Lounge, Petit & Keet

LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Honey Pies Finalists: @ the Corner, Alley Oops, Petit & Keet, Soul Fish Cafe

Pizza LITTLE ROCK

Winner: U.S. Pizza Finalists: Damgoode Pies, Pizza Cafe, The Pizzeria, ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co.

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: DeLuca’s Pizzeria (Hot Springs) Finalists: Hideaway Pizza (Conway) Rod’s Pizza Cellar (Hot Springs), Rocky’s Corner (Hot Springs), Tommy’s Famous (Mountain View)

Place for kids LITTLE ROCK

Winner: All Aboard Finalists: Chuck E. Cheese’s, Dave & Buster’s, Larry’s Pizza, Purple Cow

Sandwich LITTLE ROCK

Winner: District Fare Finalists: Boulevard Bread Co., Burges, Jimmy’s Serious Sandwiches, Paninis and Co.

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Stoby’s (Conway) Finalists: Charlotte’s Eats and Sweets (Keo), Cross Creek Sandwich Shop (Conway), Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot), Oaklawn Park (Hot Springs)

Seafood LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Flying Fish Finalists: The Oyster Bar, Oceans at Arthur’s, Petit & Keet, Soul Fish Cafe

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Eat My Catfish (Conway) Finalists: Cafe Rue Orleans (Fayetteville), Mike’s Place (Conway), Postmasters Grill (Camden), Toad Suck Bucks (Toad Suck)

Steak LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Petit & Keet Finalists: Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse, The Butcher Shop, Doe’s Eat Place, Sonny Williams’ Steak Room

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Mike’s Place (Conway) Finalists: Herman’s Rib House (Fayetteville), John Daly Steakhouse (Conway), Postmasters Grill (Camden), Tamale Factory (Gregory)

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LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Taj Mahal Finalists: Cafe Bossa Nova, The Root Cafe, Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co., Viva Vegan

AROUND THE STATE

CacheRestaurant | 425 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock | 501-850-0265 | cachelittlerock.com | CacheLittleRock Brunch served every Saturday and Sunday 10am - 2pm 26

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Winner: Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs) Finalists: The Farmer’s Table (Fayetteville), Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville), Local Flavor Cafe (Eureka Springs), Thai Kitchen (Fayetteville) CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

WINNER: BEST CHEF IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS

BEST CHEF PETER BRAVE

PETER BRAVE

OVERALL BUSINESS LUNCH OUTDOOR DINING

YOUR CHOICE FOR BEST CHEF

Little Rock’s original farm-to-table, fine dining restaurant BRAVENEWRESTAURANT.COM • 2300 COTTONDALE LANE • LITTLE ROCK • 501.663.2677

arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

BRIAN CHILSON

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN: The Lost Spudnut, the El Dorado specialty doused in chocolate, cream and strawberries.

The Griffin

El Dorado’s new restaurant showplace is worth the drive.

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

venue: the Griffin Music Hall, which can seat 2,000. A true farm-to-table operation, The Griffin’s long menu is created entirely from ingredients sourced within 150 miles of El Dorado (except for the seafood). That careful selection of ingredients shows in its menu of lunch, brunch and dinner items. On a recent visit for lunch, we sampled extensively, starting with a crab cake and fried green tomato platter ($13), which featured two thick cakes, dense with crab meat, each perched on a single slice of fried green tomato. Wellspiced and hearty, paired with a side of house-made remoulade s a u c e, t h e platter was a great pairing with a basket of lagniappe THE GRIFFIN: Named for the former auto dealership on Locust. hush puppies that came with sweet butter. For entrees, I tried ing up to be the rival of any restaurant the grilled meatloaf on garlic-mashed in the state. Now that El Do is getting potatoes ($12), while my companion its second bite at the boomtown apple, chose the Portobello and mozzarella The Griffin is definitely worth a try if panini with sweet potato fries. you’re in that neck of the woods. The meatloaf turned out to be a lot —David Koon

BRIAN CHILSON

l Dorado, something of a fin Restaurant at 101 E. Locust St., a sleepy, one-trough town chic, 200-seat dining and entertainbefore the discovery of oil ment venue and a finalist for the Best there in 1921, is living proof New category in this year’s Readers of what a large influx of cash can do for Choice Awards. a place. El Dorado’s downtown is thick Housed in a very spiffed-up forwith monumental 1920s architecture mer car dealership and service centhat might seem out of place, given that ter located directly behind the Rialto El Dorado seems situated so far from Theater, The Griffin is named for the pretty much anywhere. former occupant of the space: Griffin Though that downtown faded quite Auto Co. These days, the vast, higha bit between the city’s boomtown high ceilinged room where mechanics once and the end of the 20th century, El worked on the boss’ Packard and the Dorado is currently enjoying a second roughneck’s Ford has been gutted and infusion of serious cash, with tens of elevated to the kind of gleaming showmillions of dollars being poured into the place you might expect to see on the new Murphy Arts District. An enter- bright side of Dallas or Nashville, with tainment extravaganza built around a a central bar, uniformed waitstaff and large, 7,500-seat outdoor amphitheater, floor-to-ceiling windows that look out the MAD launched last September with on the rising MAD. A stage with statea star-studded concert featuring music of-the-art lighting and sound juts into superstars like Brad Paisley, Smokey the large dining room, and features live Robinson, Train and Migos. music every Thursday night. Take out In addition to the amphitheater, the tables and chairs, and you’d have landing A-list talent and reviving the a venue or exhibit space that could city’s grand movie palace, The Rialto, easily hold several hundred. Through the influx of capital is putting a high- a brass door at the rear of the restaugloss buff on a lot of buildings in the rant, past another wall of windows that town core. That includes The Grif- looks into the kitchen, is an even bigger

more complicated than anything your mom used to make for Sunday dinner, featuring a mixture of andouille sausage, ground chuck and tasso ham, covered in rich brown gravy. The dense, almost steak-like texture was a surprise, but a good one, as was the lovely flavor. The creamy mashed ’taters and grilled mixed vegetables were a perfect accompaniment. The panini was also excellent, as were the fries. We’ve been coming to El Dorado for family visits for years, so we are well versed in the joys of the local Spudnut, the pillowy potato-flour doughnuts that have been a local delicacy for decades and which are this writer’s favorite doughnut in the whole wide world. Given that, we had to try The Griffin’s “Lost Spudnut” dessert, with day-olds from the Spudnut shop spruced up with ice cream, whipped cream and a chocolate sauce. After a great meal, the Lost Spudnut turned out to be the best thing we had. We’ll leave it at: If sin had a taste, it would probably taste something like that. We’ve been saying for years that if you want to find the real Arkansas, you’ve got to stray far from the interstate. El Dorado is definitely living up to that idea with its investment in the arts. While The Griffin may not lure in the truckers and roughnecks, it’s shap-

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READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

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BEST INDIAN BEST BUFFET BEST VEGAN/VEGETARIAN

HIDEAWAY PIZZA: The Conway pizzeria was a finalist.

Wine list LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Petit & Keet Finalists: Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse, Samantha’s Taproom, and Wood Grill, SO Restaurant-Bar, YaYa’s Euro Bistro

AROUND THE STATE

Winner: The Hive (Bentonville) Finalists: 28 Springs (Siloam Springs), Belle Arti (Hot Springs), Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs), The Preacher’s Son (Bentonville)

Yogurt/smoothies LITTLE ROCK

Winner: TCBY Finalists: I Love Juice Bar, Scoop Dog, Tropical Smoothie, Yogurt Mountain

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Best restaurants in areas around the state: BENTON/BRYANT

Winner: Eat My Catfish

Finalists: Brown’s Country Kitchen, Fire Dancer BBQ, Rib Crib, Tacos 4 Life

CONWAY

Winner: Mike’s Place Finalists: Eat My Catfish, Pasta Grill, Tacos 4 Life, Stoby’s

EUREKA SPRINGS

Winner: Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking Finalists: DeVito’s, Gaskins Cabin, The Grotto, Mud Street Cafe

FAYETTEVILLE/SPRINGDALE/ JOHNSON

Winner: Hugo’s (Fayetteville) Finalists: Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), Bocca Italian Eatery (Fayetteville), The Farmer’s Table (Fayetteville), Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville)

HOT SPRINGS

Winner: Rolando’s Restaurante Finalists: Angels in the Park, Bella Luna, Cafe 1217, DeLuca’s Pizzeria

ROGERS/BENTONVILLE

Winner: The Hive (Bentonville), Finalists: Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), Pressroom (Bentonville), Table Mesa (Bentonville), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

YOUR FAVORITE FOR 5 YEARS

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2017 2016 2015 2014

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(501) 372-2211 • 300 President Clinton Ave • www.gusfriedchicken.com arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

BRIAN CHILSON

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

MEAT MAN: Antonio Coutino, general manager at District Fare, with a house-cured speciality.

Faring well Tomas Bohm’s new deli is on its way.

Thanks For Voting Us The Best All these many years!

BEST MEXICAN AROUND THE STATE 1209 Malvern Avenue • Hot Springs • (501) 624-6262 www.tacomama.net 32

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

omas Bohm talks about his restaurants — The Pantry (b. April 2009), The Pantry Crest (b. September 2014) and District Fare (b. June 2017) — like they’re children. He loves them. They take all of his time. And he doesn’t want any more. “I’m done. I’m stretched,” he said of his miniempire of eateries.

While the nearly 1-yearold District Fare might seem like lagniappe for a successful restaurateur — a small Hillcrest deli and sandwich shop where Bohm can show off the likes of The Pantry’s beloved homemade bratwurst and pate — he says it’s been the most challenging of his three concepts. For one, there are always logistical challenges running a combination restaurant, deli and grocery store, even on a small scale. But Bohm dramatically complicated things with his commitment to doing just about everything at District Fare in-house. To that end, he spent months last year perfecting the brine for District Fare’s pastrami, a thick-cut tender, juicy meat masterpiece topped with cornichons and homemade mustard on rye. The cured meats — capicola, Spanish-style lomo, beetred bresola, spalla, the best-in-town slabs of bacon — all get aged in-house. They’re fittingly displayed in a glass case with the same sort of dramatic lighting you’d find in a museum. The bratwurst, Hungarian sausage and chicken liver pate get made in the deli. Ditto for the mayonnaise and mustard that go on District Fare’s 10 sandwiches. CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

MEAT MAR KET “QUALITY TELLS, QUALITY SELLS”

ON’S D L E

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BEST BUTCHER AROUND THE STATE

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READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still learning and moving forward to make sure we keep bettering the product, whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the type of bread or the type of sandwich.â&#x20AC;?

BRIAN CHILSON

Those touches have been well received. The readers of the Arkansas Times voted District Fare the best deli/ gourmet-to-go spot, the best place to get a sandwich and, despite its only offering a few cuts of vacuum-sealed steak, sausages and bacon, the best butcher shop in Central Arkansas. But Bohm acknowledges growing pains. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still learning and moving forward to make sure we keep bettering the product, whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the type of bread or the type of sandwich.â&#x20AC;? District Fare recently added salad options and introduced a new sandwich, the G.O.H.M. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Gruyere, green olives, ham and mortadella on pressed French bread. Bohm says his initial prices scared customers. He initially charged $1 for chips and $1 for bottled water. Early customers balked at spending $12 plus tax on a $9.95 sandwich, chips and water. Now, chips come with the sandwich (â&#x20AC;&#x153;I completely eat the cost of the chips,â&#x20AC;? Bohm said) and water costs a quarter. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Little Rock is stuck in this strange time warp,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People have this expectation they should pay $8 for a

HOPING FOR A LIVELY AFTER-WORK CROWD: District Fare owner Tomas Bohm wants to see more customers stopping in for wine and beer.

hamburger or a sandwich. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m trying to convince people that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OK to pay $2 more.â&#x20AC;? Making everything in-house and buying bread for sandwiches from Boulevard costs more than premade offerings you might find elsewhere, Bohm said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I could do this store and experiment with it if I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the other two restaurants.â&#x20AC;? One experiment that has caught on in recent months: grab-and-go options. On Monday, District Fare has The Pantryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deliciously decadent and massive hunks of lasagna. Tuesday is stroganoff. Rotisserie chickens with veggies are on offer Wednesdays and Friday. Salmon and asparagus make reg ular appearances. Customers frequently call in early to reserve dinners. A n initia l v ision t hat hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t materialized: Customers donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come by after work to hangout with a glass of wine, beer and a charcuterie tray. District Fare closes at 7 p.m., but Bohm hopes that in time, folks will think of it as a place to grab an early dinner, or even to stop and grab another of his offerings that hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t gained a big following â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the meat cone, a paper cone piled with your choice of pastrami, mustard and breadsticks or all the cured meats, cornichons and breadsticks. Just like his restaurants, District Fa re is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;liv ing t hing â&#x20AC;? t hat â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;constantly evolving,â&#x20AC;? Bohm said. While heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always striving toward consistency, he said he knows â&#x20AC;&#x153;times are always changing. I just go with that.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Lindsey Millar

Thank you Readers & Customers for voting: 2018 Winner Best Steak Best Business Lunch Best Restaurant in Conway DQG D Ă&#x20AC;QDOLVW IRU Best Fun Best Overall Best Burger Best Seafood Best Outdoor Dining

Seventy-One Arkansas Times Readers Choice Awards in the past twelve years!

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MARCH 15, 2018

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arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

READERS CHOICE AWARDS 2018

BRIAN CHILSON

AT JOHN DALY’S IN CONWAY: Sam McFadin, who bought the rights to Daly’s name, says the steakhouse is just the beginning of a national John Daly enterprise.

John Daly’s Taking a drive for meat and potatoes.

“M

an, John Daly really is a big meat and potatoes kind of guy. You know what I mean?” asked Stephen Burrow, executive chef at the new John Daly Steakhouse in downtown Conway, when I wondered what Mr. Daly likes on the menu. And yes, of course, I know what he means. We are talking about the man who, after winning 1991 PGA Championship as the ninth alternate (he wasn’t even supposed to be there) celebrated by directing his limo to a McDonald’s drive-through. “I couldn’t cash the check yet,” Daly says in a documentary about his career, “Hit It Hard,” “so I really didn’t have any money.” That’s a very John Daly story, a defining story, and, as usual, it’s about food.

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

When you think about mystique, or maybe just the actual identity, of the Dardanelle native — sure, there’s the mullet, kaleidoscopic pants, and even the cigarettes — but … . Remember when his coach told him he was too fat to play at the University of Arkansas and he spent two and half months consuming nothing but unsalted popcorn and Jack Daniel’s to lose 67 pounds? Or when, after winning the ’95 British Open, he filled the Claret Jug with chocolate ice cream? Don’t forget that during that entire tournament run in England he’d been shoveling in fresh-baked chocolate muffins. “Ate ’em every single day,” he says in the documentary. Nowadays, you see him online posing in front of Hooters, signing memorabilia. He’s got a Diet Coke in hand. Perhaps he’s holding one of his other famous pleasures: M&M’s (really any

chocolate) or alcohol. Which is not to Den, in Dardanelle. make light of potential alcoholism. But “I sat down with John [after golf ] Daly does enjoy drinking — “grip it, and I was like, look: ‘I don’t have any rip it and sip it,” is one of his mottos. intentions of ever owning a golf course What other sports star, without — it’s just not my cup of tea. To be quite mentioning a brand, would include frank, John, I don’t even own golf in a catchphrase the consumption of clubs. But I tell you what I love about an alcoholic beverage? you is you’re a real person, you’re a “You throw him a steak or a baked realist. You’ve had triumph, you’ve potato, or you know some cheese had great success and you’ve had tristicks or something like that — that’s als in your life. And people appreciJohn,” said Burrow, who before join- ate a real person. … And I think that ing the winner of this year’s best new your legacy is something that always is restaurant outside of Little Rock was going to be here and it will always prea chef at 42 in the Clinton Presiden- vail when you’re long gone down the tial Center. road.’ I asked him: ‘What would you Steak and potato: It’s why we love think if I asked you if I could reserve Daly. the rights to your name for the entire It’s also why in a world of athlete- United States for the restaurant and themed restaurants (Yao Restaurant & entertainment business?’ ” Bar, Elway’s, Arnold Palmer’s RestauDaly told McFadin he’d tried it rant, Vince Young Steakhouse) it made before without success. But McFadin no sense to Sam McFadin, a Conway promised something different. They’d native who’d made some money in bonded a bit over a mutual love of the oil and gas, that the John Daly name Razorbacks — McFadin played footwasn’t part of a successful one. ball in 2004 and ’05 for the University McFadin said as much to Daly in of Arkansas before being sidelined 2014 when the two played a round of by an injury. McFadin promised to golf. At the time, Daly was thinking work hard. about selling his golf course, Lions In 2015, Daly agreed in writing.

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“I drew up a contract and he signed over his rights to the entertainment and restaurant business and his trademark name to me for the entire United States,” McFadin said. The steakhouse is the beginning of this bigger John Daly project. Wearing a light white jacket and a buttondown shirt, the chic look of the relaxed young entrepreneur, McFadin talks expansion of the brand. “This restaurant is a platform. … We’re looking at Dallas, we’re looking at Las Vegas, we’re looking at Jupiter, Fla., and Phoenix, Ariz.” He’s thinking not just the steakhouse, but bringing Daly’s name to many ventures, most of which he was reluctant to name until they’re closer to completion. He credits the restaurant’s success to his staff and Daly, not himself. It’s a

place “where people can experience a tangible, themed restaurant with real memorabilia. But more of a blue-collar feel,” he said. “Yes, we do have prime meats. But we are not — I repeat, we are not — classified as a white-collar steakhouse. We are a very welcoming, fun, chill, vibrant, playing music, very conversational, great drinks, original drinks of our own, type of restaurant.” The Times’ photographer and I split two items we were told Daly himself would order: a burger and the massive chicken-fried steak. They were both delicious. “Our menu is actually sculpted around John Daly’s appetite,” McFadin explained. I didn’t go full Daly and order a Diet Coke. Either way, hours later I was still full. —Jacob Rosenberg

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Arts Entertainment AND

Knowing me, knowing you ‘Mamma Mia!’ goes up at The Rep. BY ANUSHAH JIWANI

JOHN DAVID PITTMAN

SUPER TROUPERS: April Nixon, Erin Mosher and Alison Nusbaum star in The Rep’s production of the ABBA jukebox musical, “Mamma Mia!”

“I

magine three grown men in to have fun.” spandex dancing and singing “Mamma Mia!” is an international along to ABBA. It’s got to be phenomenon; it has played in more than everyone’s worst nightmare,” 50 countries and been translated into said T.J. Mannix, who plays Bill Austen 22 languages. Featuring the songs of in the Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s ABBA and elaborate dance routines, the upcoming production of Mamma Mia! musical promises feel-good vibes and a “But that’s the beauty of this musical — classic love story. everyone, even the older characters, get Here’s the story line: Sophie, a young 42

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

woman about to be married, finds out from her mother’s old diary that her father is one of three men. She invites them all to the wedding, hoping she can determine which one is her father. Mannix plays one of three potential fathers. Unfortunately for his character, this involves both the aforementioned spandex and his coming to terms with

his perennial singlehood. “The great thing about this show is that there are two generations going through very similar problems. You’ve got the dads and the Dynamos,” Mannix said. “Each character is facing his or her own problems within the greater storyline.” Young adults on the cusp of commitments are not the only ones who can relate to this play: Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles will see their relationship struggles mirrored in characters like Austen and Rosie Mulligan (Alison Nusbaum). Both Bill and Rosie are free spirits who grew up in the 1970s. Bill is a travel writer with no possessions or strings. Rosie, a former singer in the “Dynamos,” runs a feminist press and is confident in all matters aside from those of love. Mannix described the two characters as “in denial. Both characters are like, ‘We’re totally fine being single! Everything’s OK!’ — but really, they’re having to come to terms with many of the same issues that the younger

ROCK CANDY Check out the Times’ A&E blog arktimes.com

A&E NEWS generation is dealing with.” One of the messages of the musical: You continue to learn about yourself as you grow older. “This show explores facets of nontraditional relationships. It’s a celebration of family, but one that does not need to be tied to marriage,” Zane Phillips said. Phillips plays Sky, Sophie’s fiance. What can enthusiastic fans of the film version — or another stage version — gain from watching yet another production of this musical? “You’re not going to see this version of ‘Mamma Mia!’ on tour,” said marketing director Allyson Pittman Gattin. While many cast members have performed this musical before, they’ve had to approach their roles in a fresh light. According to Nusbaum, director John Miller-Stephany told actors at the auditions to “scrap what you’ve seen happen in this play. It’s going to be a different show.” Director Miller-Stephany believes in an “original take, but one that still re-evaluates the purpose of each song, each dialogue.” This means that there is room for actors to put their own spin on their roles. “Even Sarah Daniels,” Nusbaum said, “who has played Sophie before, said that in this production, she is ‘learning a whole new side of Sophie.’ ” Opening night will include a preshow cocktail dinner and drinks with the director, as well as a selfie station and Loblolly ice cream. There will also be a postshow party with the cast.

REVIEWS ARE ROLLING IN for “Gospel of Eureka,” a 2018 film from directors Michael

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SHOP LOCAL

Palmieri and Donal Mosher. The documentary, screened at South by Southwest’s film festival in Austin, Texas, is set in Eureka Springs and explores a juxtaposition between performers in the Carroll County drag queen community — primarily at a club called Eureka Live — and actors in the town’s long-tenured “The Great Passion Play,” a dramatic recreation of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, at an amphitheater near the Christ of the Ozarks, a 65-foot tall statue of Jesus that towers above the trees on Magnetic Mountain. ROYAL (GARLAND COUNTY) NATIVE Noah

Davis, 18, made waves on national television this week as he was bestowed with a “golden ticket” advancing him to the next stage of the onscreen “American Idol” vocal competition. Davis wowed judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan with a piano rendition of Rihanna’s “Stay,” and bonded with Perry over his love for alpacas and the word “wig.” Follow Davis’ progress at abc.go.com/shows/american-idol. LITTLE ROCK FILMMAKER Amman Abbasi (“Dayveon”) was named the inaugural recipient of a Chattanooga, Tenn., residency called Fancy Mama, a project of Mama Bear Studios, Fancy Rhino and the Footprint Foundation. Abbasi will receive a $25,000 stipend to live in Chattanooga for three months and, according to news outlet Nooga, “produce a short film, host a communal screening of their portfolio, direct commercial content through Fancy Rhino and focus on personal projects.” CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNER of the 2018 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase, Jamie Lou & The Hullabaloo. Jamie Connolly and her band received top marks from our judges — Robert Locke, Sarah Woolf, Dazzmin Murry, Brie Boyce and guest judge Bob Tarren

— beating out Recognizer, Sabine Valley, Couch Jackets and The Rios. The band takes home $300, an in-studio showcase at Capitol View

“Mamma Mia!” runs Wednesday, March 14, through Sunday, April 15. The cast and crew talk about the play on Thursday, March 15, at the Clinton School of Public Service, noon, free. “Pay Your Age” night is Sunday, March 18, and Sign Interpreter Night is Wednesday, March 28. “Sing-a-long Night” is Thursday, April 12. For tickets and more info, see therep.org/attend.

Studio, a live spot at Patio on Park Hill 2018, a live spot at the Arkansas State Fair Bud Light Pavilion, a live spot at Musicfest El Dorado, a live spot at RiverFest, a live spot at Low Key Arts’ Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival in Hot Springs, a Thursday Night Live performance at The Griffin restaurant in El Dorado, eight hours of artist development at The Hive Studio, a PRS SE 245 Standard 22 Electric Guitar from Sunrise Guitars and more.

Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

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TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE AND JACOB ROSENBERG

THURSDAY 3/15

KEVIN GORDON 9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $7.

If anyone’s ever tried to turn you on to north Louisiana-born songwriter Kevin Gordon in the last six years, chances are they’ve cited “Colfax/ Step In Time,” a 10 1/2-minute epic about a seventh-grader’s first whiffs of adult things like sex and racism while on a bus trip to an out-of-town football game with the marching band. And why wouldn’t they, either

as a litmus test or as the most efficient way to communicate Gordon’s understated brilliance? “Colfax” is one of many moments in his work where the man’s master’s degree in poetry surfaces without fanfare, builds and hits you right in the gut, as it is bound to do Thursday night in such an intimate venue. Frontier Circus opens the show. SS

THURSDAY 3/15

BIG K.R.I.T. 9 p.m. Rev Room. $30-$125.

GUITARRISTA: Susana Raya gives a concert at The Joint as part of the Argenta Acoustic Music Series.

THURSDAY 3/15

SUSANA RAYA

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tined to redefine their corner of hip-hop. Kendrick Lamar had West Coast’s intricate flow; K.R.I.T. had the South’s imposing beats. Now, a little over five years later, K.R.I.T.’s “Big Bank” — from the double-disc “4eva Is A Mighty Long Time” — continues to carry the torch of the booming subwoofer. Yet, K.R.I.T.’s evolution of the Southern traditions has always been a knock against him. Critics say: Yes, he’s amazing but … where’s the new sound? Ah, to hell with the new sound. Southern music’s always been about adding to the old sound. T.I. is with Big K.R.I.T. on “Big Bank” over a classic Southern rap beat; it’s like Woody Guthrie playing with Dylan. JR

FRIDAY 3/16-TUESDAY 3/20

a good chunk of the aughts racking up titles in international jazz 7:30 p.m. The Joint Theater & competitions. She’s performing Coffeehouse. $25. in intimate venues, like the one If you figure out a way to you’ll see of “Ave de Paso” on make it through a three-minute Vimeo for the Dutch GitaarSalon, video of Susana Raya’s singing in which the audience — already and guitar playing without fall- sitting very still — appears to ing head over heels in love, let me freeze when Raya begins singknow. The woman who music ing delicately and unaffectedly critic Ted Gioia coined “the An- in Spanish, letting six guitar dalusian Eva Cassidy” made her strings do what they do in only way into jazz guitar after getting a precious few sets of hands. See her propers at a conservatory in argentaacoustic.com/tickets for her native Cordoba, Spain, spent tickets. SS

When I think of Big K.R.I.T. I’m back in Mississippi in a white church van driving with a group of middle school boys who, after a long trip to Little Rock listening to palatable rock, demanded that we please, for the love of God, play some rap music. We, the “adults,” played “Country Shit.” The kids lost it. I oversaw a group of 12-year-olds yelling: “Let me tell you ’bout this/Super fly dirty dirty/Third coast muddy water. … Let me tell you bout this country shit/Country, country shit.” I stand by the decision. Big K.R.I.T. was theirs after all — from right over in Meridian. And then, too, around 2012, Big K.R.I.T. was among the group of ascendant rappers, des-

VALLEY OF THE VAPORS INDEPENDENT MUSIC FESTIVAL Various times. Various venues, downtown Hot Springs. $10-$40.

If 90 percent of what you’ve heard about 2018’s South by Southwest Festival has been people bitching about traffic and inflated prices in the Austin area, consider this a counterpoint. Since 2005, Bill Solleder (founder of Low Key Arts and now Special Events Manager for Visit Hot Springs) and his successor, Artistic Director Bobby Missile (also of the band Ghost Bones), have been luring inventive musicians and artists to Hot Springs with the idea that: a) musicians want

a place to play on the way to/from SXSW and b) if that place happens to be in a gorgeous National Park with old-school bathhouses and natural mineral springs at its epicenter, even better. This year, the lineup includes Larkin Poe, Grandchildren, Juiceboxxx, Oneida, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Fenster, Moaning, Or, Birdcloud and about 30 other bands you’ll hear about later and think “Weren’t they in Hot Springs last year?” Check out the schedule at valleyofthevapors.com. SS

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 3/15

WE’RE AN AMERICAN BAND: Grand Funk Railroad (pictured), Morris Day & The Time, Adam Faucett and Akeem Kemp play in Hot Springs this weekend for festivities surrounding the World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

FRIDAY 3/16-SATURDAY 3/17

FIRST EVER 15TH ANNUAL WORLD’S SHORTEST ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE 3 p.m. Fri., 5:30 p.m. Sat. Downtown Hot Springs. Free.

Jon Heder of “Napoleon Dynamite” fame, Joey Fatone of NSYNC fame, Grand Funk Railroad of Sweet Sweet Connie fame (or was that the other way ’round?), Morris Day and The Time, the Budweiser Clydesdales, Adam Faucett and Akeem Kemp are all going to be in the historic area of downtown Hot Springs this weekend. If that doesn’t strike

you as a recipe for a top-notch people-watching party, add the following ingredients: attendees of the concurrent Valley of the Vapors music festival, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, people dressed as leprechauns, the crowd from the Hot Springs Women’s Film Festival and every half-drunk Oaklawn patron who went to claim a piece of that $900,000 Rebel Stakes purse

on Saturday. Rose Schweikhart, mastermind behind the Superior Bathhouse Brewery, and Anthony Valinoti, mastermind behind DeLuca’s Pizzeria, preside as parade royalty over the parade on the 98-foot-long Bridge Street that makes up the whole of the World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Check out shorteststpats.com for a full schedule. SS

FRIDAY 3/16

STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES 8 p.m. Griffin Music Hall, El Dorado. $25-$35.

“Copperhead Road” came out 30 years ago. Its chief author, music, Earle’s railed against the death penalty (“Billy Austin,” Steve Earle, called it a mesh of heavy metal and bluegrass. Crit- “Ellis Unit One”), war (“The Revolution Starts Now”) and the ics called it “power twang.” It spawned years of mimicry; at- South’s misguided nostalgia for the rebel flag (“Mississippi, It’s tempts to write songs about whiskey and weed as ballsy as the Time”). Now, Earle and his band The Dukes play “Copperhead record’s title track; attempts to rock-ify the mandolin; attempts Road” in its entirety — plus some new tunes from his latest, “So to snapshot the experience of the down and out in America; You Wannabe An Outlaw” — at The Griffin Music Hall in El and attempts to reconcile that experience with politics that Dorado’s Murphy Arts District. I wonder what he’ll make of all didn’t fit neatly into the “D” or “R” categories. Through his those adoring statues of bygone oil tycoons. SS

The Chamber Music Society of Little Rock presents a concert from violinist Miroslav Ambros, 7:30 p.m., Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. “Hand to God,” a satire that mashes up puppets, lewd comedy and religious contempt, runs at the Studio Theatre through March 18, see centralarkansatickets.com for details. Sharon Farmer, the first female and first African-American appointed director of White House photography, discusses her work at UA Pulaski Technical College’s Center for the Humanities and Arts, 6 p.m., free. Nashville’s Birdcloud takes its raunchy, pithy satire to the stage at Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, with an opening set from Dylan Earl, 9 p.m., $10-$13. The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History hosts Arkie Pub Trivia at Stone’s Throw Brewing, 6:30 p.m., free. The Gold Show Drag Show takes over Maxine’s in Hot Springs, 9 p.m., $5. Steve “Mudflap” McGrew goes for laughs at The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 10 p.m. Fri.Sat., $10-$15. Ballet Arkansas Artistic Director Michael Fothergill gives a talk on the evolution of movement as a classical form, 6 p.m., with a 5:30 p.m. wine reception, Arkansas Arts Center, $10.

FRIDAY 3/16 The Arkansas Cinema Society screens Mark Thiedeman’s “Alex in the Morning” and Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park,” 6:30 p.m., CALS Ron Robinson Theater, $12. Vocalist and trombonist Tiko Brooks previews his debut solo project at South on Main, 10 p.m., $15. Maria Fasciano, Marisa Colon, Matthew Newman and Stephen Edds join the Arkansas Chamber Singers for a performance of Mozart’s “Coronation Mass,” 7:30 p.m., St. James United Methodist Church, $15-$25. “HairyKate Olsen” hosts the “Hairyoke” drag show at Club Sway, 9 p.m. The White Water Tavern hosts a DJ-anddrums mashup with Trap Beatz, 9 p.m., $10. Jamie Lou & The Hullabaloo brings velvety vocals and slow crescendos to Stickyz, 9 p.m., $6. The Human Experiment, Ambitions, Levels and Rats at a Bar Grab at a Star share a bill at Vino’s, 8 p.m., $8$10. Green Jelly, envelope-pushers and arch nemeses of Kraft Foods, take “Three Little Pigs” and other rockers to Four Quarter Bar with Queen Anne’s Revenge and The Damn Randys, 9 p.m., $10. Go watch Fayettevillebased Brother Moses’ serial-murder video for “Crazy Eyes,” and then catch the band at the Rev Room with The Wldlfe and Rock Eupora, 8:30 p.m., $10. Katrice “Butterfly” Newbill takes her gospel, old school and reggae blend to the stage at Gigi’s Soul Cafe & Lounge, 9 p.m., $15-$20.

Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

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Love A Bad Name,” to cooing at old photographs for 1994’s “Always,” to holding up traffic with a secret underground tunnel concert in 2000’s “It’s My Life.” “I can’t sing a love

song like the way it’s meant to be,” he sang on “Always.” After a quick rundown of his discography in light of this show, I’m not so sure about that. SS

TUESDAY 3/20

‘BOB LE FLAMBEUR’ 7 p.m. Riverdale 10 Cinema. $9.

‘MOVING TO BRUSSELS’: Bhi Bhiman performs at South on Main as part of Oxford American’s concert series.

THURSDAY 3/15

BHI BHIMAN 8 p.m. South on Main. $25-$34.

There’s a bit in the video for Bhi Bhiman’s “Moving to Brussels” in which actor Keegan-Michael Key — in a cameo as a sort of “bad cop” performance coach that’s only a couple of clicks calmer than Key’s “Luther, Obama’s Anger Translator” — insults Bhiman’s rhythm, quipping that he is “the wrong kind of brown.” It’s by no means the most inventive bit in the video, which is itself a parody of the film “Whiplash,” but it might be the one that pokes at Bhiman’s biography most specifically. Bhiman, a son of Sri Lankan immigrants gifted with a magnificently expressive voice, once referred to his childhood in

St. Louis as “a sort of Brown Norman Rockwell existence with lots of running around in creeks and playing baseball,” and has spent much of his artistic bandwidth exploring ideas around the immigrant’s experience in America, xenophobia and racial tension. Check out the achingly lovely duet with Rhiannon Giddens called “Up in Arms,” sung from the perspective of Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton and referencing Arkansas-born Panther Bobby Hutton: “The police are always saying ‘why this senseless violence?’/But they’ll light the spark and we’ll be dry brush in the wind/‘Up in arms, up in arms, up in arms!’ I said/Tell Bobby Hutton that policeman still gets paid.” SS

TUESDAY 3/20

BON JOVI 7:30 p.m. Verizon Arena. $23-$155.

The man responsible for some of your worst hair ideas and your best karaoke jams is returning to Little Rock sans guitarist Richie Sambora, and his team has booked a local band — DeFrance — to open up the show. 46

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Rolling Stone’s “Reader’s Poll” of fan favorites published in 2016 reveals Jon Bon Jovi as a rock shapeshifter of a frontman, capable of throwing guitars and doing the tango with microphone stands for 1986’s “You Give

As we study the heist film with the Arkansas Times’ film series, our invisible guide is a man named Auguste le Breton. A French orphan of early 20th century Brittany — and born Auguste Monofort — le Breton (which translates to “native of Brittany”) wrote 77 novels, distinctively in slangy French, about the criminal world he’d dipped a toe in as a rudderless youth. One of those novels was “Rififi,” which was the basis for a film of the same name, the first in the series. Our latest screening is “Bob le Flambeur.” The film was released in 1956 in France with dialogue written by le Breton. The director of the film, Jean Pierre-Melville, also changed his name: he was born JeanPierre Grumbach in 1917, a Jewish

boy in France. He did not call himself “Melville” until sometime during the 1930s after reading the American author Melville’s “Moby-Dick.” Both le Breton and Pierre-Melville were part of the French resistance during World War II. What were these young Frenchmen looking for in their name changes? What secrets did they hide of that search for meaning in the capers of men stealing jewels? It makes me think of one of my favorite writers, Patrick Modiano (also a French Jew). The most famous of his works is “Missing Person,” in which a detective goes in search of his own identity. But “Missing Person” is not unique. All Modiano’s novels, basically, have that plot — an endless search to steal back one’s self. JR

WEDNESDAY 3/21

BRONCHO BILLY ANDERSON: A CELEBRATION OF HIS LIFE AND WORK 7 p.m. Historic Arkansas Museum. Free, registration required.

It turns out that the first cowboy up,’ and ‘reestablishment scene,’ have movie star was born in Little Rock to a become standard techniques presRussian Jewish mother and a German ent even in modern westerns.” This Jewish father. Gilbert Maxwell Aron- event, on what would be Anderson’s son played three roles in 1903’s “The 138th birthday, celebrates his life and Great Train Robbery,” a primitive work with screenings of his short but pivotal silent film that ushered in films and a reception featuring the an era of stick-’em-up Westerns, and Jewish foods from Anderson’s youth which some herald as the first Ameri- as well as a presentation by Niles Escan action flick, the first Western film sanay Silent Film Museum founders and the first true narrative film ever David and Rena Kiehn. Just before released. Aronson became “Broncho that, there’s a dedication of a marker Billy” Anderson, and went on to de- in Anderson’s honor in front of the velop the idea of the “cowboy movie,” First United Methodist Church at the along with many of the genre’s de- corner of Center and Seventh streets, finitive features. “The techniques he led by Jerry Klinger, founder of the devised,” Anderson’s Encyclopedia Jewish American Society for Historic of Arkansas entry reads, “including Preservation. You’ll find the link to the ‘long shot,’ ‘medium shot,’ ‘close register at historicarkansas.org. SS

IN BRIEF, CONT. Mayday by Midnight entertains at Oaklawn Racing & Gaming’s Silks Bar & Grill, 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.; catch The Pink Piano Show in the casino’s Pops Lounge, 5 p.m. Fri.-Sat., free. Gas Station Disco performs at West End Smokehouse, 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $7. The Wandering Troubadours kick off a set at Hibernia Irish Tavern, 7 p.m. Galleries will be open on Main Street from 5-8 p.m. for the Third Friday Argenta Art Walk.

SATURDAY 3/17

‘BELLE OF THE WEST’: Electric blues guitarist and vocalist Samatha Fish lands at the Rev Room Wednesday evening.

WEDNESDAY 3/21

SAMANTHA FISH 8 p.m. Rev Room. $15.

It’s very clear from anything she’s put out in the last 12 months: Samantha Fish has been sharpening the edges. Maybe more crucially, though, the way people see the 29-year-old, blonde bombshell has begun to shift over the last few years. Talent that once could have been relegated to cutesy-wunderkind-guitar hero territory has come into its own, and Fish is busting down doors in the world of electric blues guitar — an arena historically occupied by people who don’t look a lot like her. Her latest, “Belle of the West,” was produced by Luther Dickinson (of North Mississippi Allstars) and has liner note credits that read like the invitation list to the juke joint party of your dreams: Jimbo Mathus, Amy LaVere, Lillie Mae, Lightnin’ Malcolm. Fellow cigar box blues guitarist Bill “Bluesboy Jag” Jagitsch and his band the Juke Joint Zombies open the show. SS

A stage version of “Dirty Dancing” goes up at Robinson Center Performance Hall, 3 p.m. Sat., 7:30 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m. Sun., $28-$77. Gigi’s Soul Cafe & Lounge hosts Soul Session Live with Dee Dee Jones, 9 p.m., $15-$20. Conway County bluesman Akeem Kemp and his backing band return to White Water, 9 p.m., $7. The St. Patrick’s Day celebration at Vino’s gets heavy with Eyehategod, CroMags, Colour Design and Terminal Nation, 7 p.m., $22-$25. Heifer International hosts a celebration of urban and rural farming with Alpacapalooza, 10 a.m., free. Author Woody Skinner reads from his book “A Thousand Distant Radios” for the Argenta Reading Series, 6:30 p.m., 421 Main St., donations. Fayetteville-based pop rockers Boom Kinetic return to the Rev Room, 9:30 p.m., $10. Hibernia Irish Tavern hosts a show from Secondhand Cannons, 7 p.m. The Stolen Faces pay tribute to the Grateful Dead with a show at Stickyz, 9 p.m., $10.

SUNDAY 3/18 Fresno duo Strange Vine teams up with Joshua Asante for a show at White Water, 7 p.m., $7. The North Little Rock Community Concert Band performs works ranging from James Lamb’s ragtime to Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra,” 3 p.m., Patrick Henry Hays Center, free. In Hot Springs, the Stardust Big Band performs hits from the big band era at the Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa Crystal Ballroom, 3 p.m., $10.

TUESDAY 3/20 Test your Dunder-Mifflin knowledge at Nexus Coffee & Creative with “The Office” Trivia, 7 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 3/21 North Carolina’s Sarah Shook & The Disarmers take their country vibes to South on Main as part of the “Sessions” series curated by Fret & Worry, 8 p.m., $10. The Arkansas Black Hall of Fame and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff host an Arkansas History Makers Reception honoring several AfricanAmerican visionaries, 6 p.m., Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.

UPCOMING EVENTS APR

Arkansas Times Bus Trips Retracing Charles Portis’s True Grit in Arkansas MAR

The Studio Theatre Hand to God

15-18

Four Quarter Bar Green Jello @ Four Quarter Bar

MAR

16 MAR

Four Quarter Bar 2nd Annual ALS Benefit Speakeasy Party

APR

Four Quarter Bar Agent Orange w/ The Atom Age

29 1

APR 6-8 13-15 20-22 APR

The Weekend Theater Assassins 5th & Main Lions Uptown Downtown Market & Bazaar

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arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

MIMI’S CAFE, 11725 Chenal Parkway, has announced specials for St. Patrick’s Day, March 17: Breakfast will be Corned Beef Brisket Hash and Eggs served all day, and lunch and dinner will feature a Corned Beef and Cabbage entree. The beer, like your pinch-protective dress, will be green. STEAK ’N SHAKE, the home of the steakburger and fresh banana milkshakes, will return to Central Arkansas “this spring,” when it opens in Conway, a news release from the company said. The restaurant will be in The Shoppes at Centerstone at 2405 Dave Ward Drive. The chain, founded in 1934 in Normal, Ill., once had restaurants in North Little Rock and Hot Springs. There are now four Steak ’n Shakes in Arkansas. PROOF BAR AND LOUNGE at 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. got its health inspection late last week and is in the “soft opening” stage, owner Gene Lee says. He says he’ll be fully open “definitely” by St. Patty’s Day. He won’t have food for a bit, but when he does, it will include wings, pork sandwiches, cheese and meat boards, salad and a few other snacks. Lee, formerly the bartender at The Pantry, has remodeled the former “Next” bar for a leaner, lighter look and will open a patio at some point. Hours are 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and noon to 10 p.m. Sunday. See the draft beer lineup on Proof’s Facebook page; spirits from Rocktown Distillery join the other liquor labels. THE FORMER HOME of the Marketplace Grill at 11600 Pleasant Ridge Road will open as The Juicy Seafood and Steakhouse LLC, a sign on Cantrell Road reveals. A call to The Juicy Seafood in Savannah, Ga., did not confirm that Little Rock’s restaurant was part of the chain, but the Georgia restaurant serves Chinese food and the incorporator in Little Rock is Jingdong Li and the registering agent is Dongjin Huang. HAYNE BEGLEY’S DELTA Biscuit Co., which teamed up Sunday with Flyway Brewing to serve a pop-up brunch (complete with chocolate gravy), has scheduled a pop-up “brinner” April 5 at Honey Pies, 315 N. Bowman Road, and will take over the Blue Sail counter in the Little Rock Technology Park at 417 Main St. in the future, on a date to be determined. Begley is raising money to open a food truck for the business. AN APPLICATION FOR a plumbing permit has been made for a restaurant to be called Lala’s, to be located at 4546 McCain Blvd. It has no connection to LaLa’s Deli in Magnolia. 48

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

HOW THEY EAT THEM IN CHICAGO: Fassler’s Chicago-style franks are long and loaded.

Raise a stein To Fassler Hall.

hat do you envision when you hear the phrase “German beer hall”? For many of us, the phrase conjures up ideas of huge, foam-topped steins carried by waitresses dressed like the fabled St. Pauli Girl. Soccer/futbol banners hanging from the rafters, and polka music oom-pah-pahing from the bandstand while the aroma of grilled brats floats through the air. The newly opened Fassler Hall (located next to Dust Bowl Lanes & Lounge, with the same owners) is a somewhat more Americanized twist on the traditional Bavarian drinking establishment, blending strong, hearty beers and brats with the familiar trappings of a sports bar. When it comes to

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Kettle, Stone’s Throw, Flyway) among a healthy array of domestics. Our crew was especially fond of the strong Spaten Optimator and the fruity Stiegl Lemon Radler. Fassler clearly aims to offer heartdecor, Fassler is big on long, family- ier food choices than those found in style wooden picnic tables and smaller the average bar menu. We started by side booths for those who crave a bit sharing the salty and delicious Duck more intimacy. Our crew of four adults Fat Fries ($6, free with any order on and one child occupied one of these Mondays) and two large soft pretzels booths on a recent Thursday visit and, ($6). The pretzels were decent, but after some fumbling with a somewhat were made outstanding with a side of odd table-to-bench gap, settled in to smoked Gouda cheese sauce that the see what Fassler has to offer. entire table raved about. Other options Step one: Any good German beer on the limited appetizer menu included hall had better start with a fine selec- a Pimento Cheese Charcuterie Board tion of beer, and Fassler has some deli- ($14) along with pork rinds with French cious German draft choices (half-liters onion dip ($7). for $5, $5.50 and $6). German beers on For entrees, Fassler focuses largely tap include options by Spaten, Hofbrau, (but not exclusively) on its house-made Stiegl and Paulaner, with multiple other sausages and franks. The menu feaGerman beers available in bottles. Hap- tures nine different sausage and hot dog pily, one can also find a good selection selections, including the trusty Bratof local brews (Lost Forty, Core, Rebel wurst ($6) and Cheddarwurst ($6.50),

BELLY UP

Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas arktimes.com

Fassler Hall 311 E. Capitol Ave. 246-4757 fasslerhall.com/locations/little-rock

Fresh and simple.

Open Grills | |Full FullBar Bar OpenKitchen Kitchen || Wood Wood Grills

32Beers Beers&&20 20 Wines Wines On 32 OnSam’s Sam’sTap Tap GreatFood! Food! Good Great GoodTimes! Times! Weuse useonly only the the freshest freshest ingredients, We ingredients, vegetables and products from Arkansas. vegetables and products from Arkansas.

322 Mann on on Main) Main) 322Main Main St. St. (The (The Mann

((501) 501) 379-8019 916-9613

322 Main St. (The Mann on Main)

(501) 916-9613

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Quick bite Every Monday is “Sausage Party” day at Fassler Hall: All sausages are half-priced (except the Sausage Sampler). Patrons may also purchase “grill-ready housemade sausage” to go for $8 per pound.

Open on Sundays for lunch and dinner

April 22nd, April 29th, and May 6th.

Hours Open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Other info Mimosas are served at Saturday and Sunday brunch, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

BEST BUSINESS LUNCH, BEST WINE LIST BEST OVERALL

Open Kitchen | Wood Grills | Full Bar

32 Beers & 20 Wines On Sam’s Tap

Great Food! Good Times! We use only the freshest ingredients, vegetables and products from Arkansas.

to more daring choices like Habanero Chicken ($6) and lamb ($7.50) sausages. One of our dining mates opted for the Sausage Sampler ($13) — three choices of sausages, plus sauerkraut and mustard (and no buns). All three were juicy and flavorful, with special kudos given to a Jalapeno Cheddar offering that had a slow, sneaky burn. Another of our tablemates opted for the Chicago-style frankfurter ($6) — a generous-sized frank topped with pickle, sport pepper, tomato, onion, relish, celery salt and yellow mustard — a more-than-adequate dog. The star of our table, though, was the lovely pork shank ($18). The shank — slow roasted, braised with honey and served bone-in — was an impressive size, with plenty to share. The meat was tender and moist, its somewhat crispy outer layer providing a nice crunch. Despite some help from all corners of the table, our team left some of the dish behind. In our quest to try German specialties, we also ordered the pork schnitzel ($14), served with a “triple mushroom sauce.” The schnitzel was thin, crispy and quite tasty, with a rich sauce. All entrees come with a choice of two sides, including a delicate sweet potato spaetzel, German potato salad, braised red cabbage, Brussels sprouts and the aforementioned Duck Fat Fries. With the exception of the red cabbage,

which was a bit raw, the food got good reviews all around. For dessert, Fassler Hall offers only one choice: Pretzel Bread Pudding ($6). It was dry, given that pretzels are less absorbent than bread. A more generous serving of sauce might have helped make this dessert a moister, better treat. One note on ambience: If you’re coming at a busy time, expect Fassler Hall to be quite loud and a bit challenging for conversation. The large room, concrete floors, exposed piping, televised sports and loud (non-German) music make this a place more suited for lusty shouting than for intimate exchanges. When warmer weather arrives, Fassler’s large outdoor patio will be very inviting for those seeking a more peaceful place to bend an elbow. This writer made a solo return trip to Fassler for a quick and quiet lunch several days after the first visit and chose the Kraut Burger ($7). This was a nice lunch option, served on a warm, soft pretzel bun with sauerkraut and smoked Gouda cheese and a side of fries. The burger itself was fine, if a tad on the smallish side. In sum: Fassler Hall is a welcome Bavarian addition to the burgeoning Little Rock beer scene, bringing new flavors to town and a new venue option for East Little Rock night-lifers. Here’s to hoping that we raise many a stein here.

322 Main St. (The Mann on Main)

(501) 916-9613

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CONCERT REVIEW BRIAN CHILSON

Jean-Pierre Melville’s

“BOB LE FLAMBEUR” 7 P.M. TUESDAY, MARCH 20

$9.00

RIVERDALE 10 VIP CINEMA, 2600 CANTRELL RD

Gunpowder, lead and Pistol Annies Even so, a more subdued Miranda Lambert at Verizon Arena. BY BILL PADDACK

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MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

ou have to hand it to Miranda Lambert. She certainly doesn’t shy away from telling fans just how she feels. Well into her concert Saturday night at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock and right before singing the weepy “Tin Man,” the country superstar — shimmying around the stage in a red paisley top with fringe on the sleeves, a short

skirt and boots — declared what most country fans already know too well. “I had a really shitty year in 2015, and I wrote some really good country songs.” OK, then. So this is the 2018 Miranda (when you win as many female vocalist of the year awards as she has you can pretty much go by one name), on the road for her “Livin’ Like Hippies” Tour. The divorce from Blake Shelton is behind her. She still puts on a great show and gives it her all, wanting her

SEPTEMBER 11-27, 2015 (501) 378-0405 | TheRep.org HELL ON HEELS: Miranda Lambert stopped at Verizon Arena Saturday night as part of her “Livin’ Like Hippies” tour.

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Thursday, March 15, 2018 6 P.M. fans to have a good time. “I like to make fun. The Country Music Association’s you feel everything,” she says. reigning New Artist of the Year has She’s still a huge success. The Cen- topped the charts with songs about … tral Arkansas show was announced as boots. Apparently he likes singing about a sellout, attracting 10,318 loyal fans. them as much as he likes wearing them. (A sizable number of those doubled as His show is a bit rowdy and a whole lot PardiAnimals, a.k.a. fans of the very lik- traditional. A California guy who honed able Jon Pardi, but more on that later.) his sound in West Coast honky-tonks, And she still sounds great, but fans he delivered the goods on “Head Over who have followed her career and have Boots” and “Dirt on My Boots,” and he’s seen her in concert before are aware definitely not afraid of a good amount that something’s just a bit different. of twang and a steel guitar. She’s not quite as feisty. She seems to We like both of those songs a lot, be, understandably, a tad more cynical but his latest single just might be his and, perhaps most of all, just not quite best, or at least his most traditional. Not as happy. as bouncy as many of his others, “She All right, we’ll stop all this. She is, Ain’t In It” is a thoughtful tale of a postafter all, older now, she deserves a break breakup guy gearing up to rejoin the and maybe we have to admit we sim- good-time scene and doesn’t “wanna ply prefer the “Gunpowder and Lead” hear her name” or “see her face.” We Miranda to the “Tin Man” Miranda. find it easy to imagine that a pair of Hopefully that’s fair enough to acknowl- legendary previous purveyors of Caliedge. fornia-style country like, oh, say Merle Lambert sang both of those songs Haggard and Buck Owens, would gladly and both, of course, were huge crowd tip their hats to Pardi for that one. favorites. Her big, powerful voice is His “Heartache on the Dance Floor,” absolutely suited to a blistering rocker another hit off his “California Sunrise” like “Gunpowder” with its fiery lyr- album, was a crowd favorite and he ics, such as: “If he wants a fight well also shined on “Cowboy Hat,” “Can’t now he’s got one/And he ain’t seen me Turn You Down,” “Night Shift” and crazy yet.” a tune (“Out of Style”) about a young Something we did absolutely love — songwriter being told to write about it was a surprise to us, but maybe oth- what he knows, so he ends up with ers knew it was going to happen — was lines like: “Jesus saves and beer’s betwhen she was joined on stage by her ter cold/A good woman’s made to love, gal pals Ashley Monroe and Angaleena not just to hold.” Presley. Together, they’re the trio the Pardi delivers a bit of a new twist to Pistol Annies and they joyfully rocked songs and lyrics that otherwise might the house down with “Hell on Heels” have been at home in the country sound and “Takin’ Pills.” of the 1960s and ’70s. And that’s just fine Lambert’s performance was also with us. Boots and all. highlighted by hits like “Kerosene,” Sunny Sweeney opened the show “The House That Built Me,” “Mama’s with a six-song set of easy-to-like songs Broken Heart” and “White Liar” before highlighted by the excellent “Better Bad she encored with “Little Red Wagon.” Idea” that left us hoping we’ll see her Pardi, the middle act, was just plain again real soon.

Sponsored by Arkansas Times and Lost Forty Before the second preview of Opening Week, enjoy a complimentary beer tasting provided by Lost Forty Brewing.

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arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

REPORTER, CONT. times those forms of ID — such as birth certificates or passports — are hard to get. Lower forms of IDs — a prison release statement, court orders, work ID — can be used, but getting those documents also takes money and time. “It’s just like this undue burden on someone who’s trying to just get an ID — which is something that they possibly have the right to have. And it is definitely a deterrent for people. Because there is potentially an element of fear of navigating this whole system,” Miranda Deaton, a re-entry case manager at Our House, said. Jones described the process of getting his license in similar terms: “confusing,” “nerve-racking,” and “a lot of anxiety.” But now with license in his hand, Jones said he can begin imagining life after Hidden Creek. He talks about taking his daughters (13 and 8) to their sports games and holding down his job in Little Rock. “I can take my kids to the park, I can take them to a movie. I can take them to their game,” he said. “I can do that,” he repeated. “I can do that.” BRIAN CHILSON

licenses were suspended. Parole officers within Arkansas Community Corrections, which oversees those on parole and probation, will provide the license. “It’s been a big initiative for us,” said Kevin Murphy, chief deputy director of ACC. “Everybody should know if [those recently released] don’t have a driver’s license it makes it very difficult to get work, but also all the other things like renting an apartment. … It’s a circle, just a circle.” ACC said parole officers are beginning to talk to their parolees about getting a license. Of the approximately 500 parole officers, 87 now have access to an electronic system to provide the license. As of Feb. 9, 47 restricted licenses have TUCKER: He sponsored legislation that helps, but doesn’t solve all of the problems parolees often been given to parolees. face when trying to get a driver’s license. “It’s just like any huge program, it takes a while,” Murphy said. But ACC is hopeful and aware of the prob- won’t be issued. required to get a restricted license. lem of license and ID difficulty. Importantly, the restricted license “It doesn’t catch everybody. I wish it The restricted license has limits: If also requires the person “be in the pro- could catch more,” Murphy said. the inmate’s license was suspended for cess of paying any outstanding court The ACC tries to help former inmates serious vehicular crimes, such as driv- fines,” DFA spokesman Scott Hardin who can’t get driver’s licenses to get ing under the influence or vehicular said. Which still means coordination a state ID. But that has its obstacles manslaughter, or if the inmate is behind across the many court systems in Arkan- too. “You’ve got to have proper previin child support, the restricted license sas — if not outright full payment — is ous identification,” Murphy said. Some-

ALSO IN THE ARTS

THEATER “Hand to God.” The Studio Theatre stages Robert Askins’ Tony Award-winning play. 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun. $15-$20. 320 W. 7th St. 501-374-2615. “Grandpa Hasn’t Moved for Days.” The late winter/spring comedy show from The Main Thing. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., through March 24. $24. The Joint Theater & Coffeehouse. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-3720205. “Dirty Dancing.” A stage version of the beloved 1987 film. 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sun. $28-$77. Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. 501-244-8800. “Follies.” Argenta Community Theater stages the undersung Sondheim musical. 7 p.m. Thu., 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. $20-$40. 405 Main St. 501-353-1443. “Little Shop of Horrors.” Murry’s Dinner Playhouse puts up the Alan Menken/ Howard Ashman dark comedy. 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat., dinner at 6 p.m.; 12:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. Sun., dinner at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., through April 21. $15-$37. 6323 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3131. “Mamma Mia.” The Rep takes on the ABBA jukebox musical. 7 p.m. Sun., 7 p.m. Wed.-Thu., 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., through April 8. $30-$65. 601 Main St. 501-378-0405. 52

MARCH 15, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

“Vietgone.” TheatreSquared performs Qui Nguyen’s “Arkansas love story … with ninjas.” 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through April 8. $10-$44. Walton Arts Center’s Studio Theater, 495 W. Dickson St. 479-443-5600.

FINE ART, HISTORY EXHIBITS MAJOR VENUES ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Luminous Lines: Forty Years of Metalpoint Drawings,” 35 works surveying the career of Susan Schwalb, through April 29; “Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work,” drawings and watercolors from the permanent collection, through April 22; “Jann Greenland: What Might Be,” metal and bead work, through April 29; “Art of Motion and Music: Traditional Movement and the Origins of Classical Dance,” with Ballet Arkansas Artistic Director Michael Fothergill, 5:30 p.m. wine reception, 6 p.m. lecture March 15; “Feed Your Mind Friday,” with registrar Katie Hall and Curator of Drawings Ann Prentice Wagner about the conservation of the John Marin collection, noon March 16; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, Jonesboro: “Everything Is Going to be Alright,” five solo shows by Courtney

Egan (video), Charley Friedman (video), Barbara F. Kendrick (digital collages), Anne Austin Pearce (paintings) and Andy Warhol (helium balloons), talk by Kendrick 3 p.m. March 28; “Doodle,” work by Curt Bradbury Jr., Nina Bovasso, David S. Rubin, Diana Lopez and Adam Ross, Vaughn Gallery. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, extended hours to 7 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. 870972-2074. ARTS & SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 S. Main St.: “The Women are Stronger: An Installation by Margo Duvall,” cyanotype on fabric, through April 21; “UAPB & ASC: Five Decades of Collaboration,” work by Tarrence Corbin, Earnest Davidson, Fred Schmidt, Dr. William Detmers and others from UA Pine Bluff in the ASC permanent collection, through Nov. 3; “#GildTheDelta,” metallic pastels by Norwood Creech, through April 21. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 870-536-3375. ARTS CENTER OF THE OZARKS, 214 S. Main St., Springdale: “Vox Femina II,” works by 25 women artists, through March 28. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.3 p.m. Sat. 479-751-5441. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: 48th annual “Mid-Southern Watercolorists Exhibition”; “Delta: Rediscovered,” photographs of early life (18801924) in Arkansas’s White River Delta

by Dayton Bowers, through April 28; “Education in Exile: Student Experience at Rohwer,” through June 30; “Arkansas and WWI,” documents, photographs and artifacts, through May 26. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “Louder than Words: Rock, Power & Politics,” through Aug. 5; permanent exhibits on the Clinton administration. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 adults, $8 seniors, retired military and college students, $6 youth 6-17, free to active military and children under 6. 374-4242. COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Ave.: “New Rules,” paintings by Kathy Strause. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way, Bentonville: “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power,” work by more than 60 artists created between the 1960s and ’80s, including Romare Bearden, Melvin Edwards, Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Charles White, Alvin Loving, Alma Thomas, Sam Gillian and others, through April 23; “Motown and High Negro

Style,” the sounds of Motown with Mark Anthony Neal of Duke University, 7-8:30 p.m. March 15, $15 ($12 members); “Black Power Mix Tape 1967-1975,” documentary, with Mark Anthony Neal, 7-9 p.m. March 16, free; “Love in the Stax: Death + Resurrection,” 7-8:30 p.m. March 22, $15 ($12 members); “All or Nothing,” works from the permanent collection in black and white, through May 28; “Not to Scale: Highlights from the Fly’s Eye Dome Archive,” drawings and models of Fuller’s geodesic dome, through March; American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun., closed Tue. 479418-5700. ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “Exposed: Unmentionables 1900-1960s,” dress forms, corsets, slips, advertisements, accessories of women’s undergarments, through April 29; “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” permanent exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. $10, $8 for students, seniors and military. 916-9022. FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “Will Barnet: Forms and Figures,” through June 3; “Fort Smith Legend John Bell,” paintings and sculpture, through April 22. 18. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479-784-2787. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: “#5WomenArtists,” in conjunction with National Museum of Women in the Arts’ national campaign, featuring work by Jamie Goza Fox (1887-1979); Essie Ann Treat Ward (1902-1981), Elsie May Ford (1901-1977), Natalie Smith Henry (1907-1992), and Neppie Lee Conner (1917-2006); “Found in Nature: Kate Nessler and Barbara Satterfield,” ceramics and botanical drawings, through May 6; “These Various Threads I Drew,” 19th century needlepoint samplers, through June; “Going Unnoticed: Dustyn Bork and Carly Dahl,” through April 8. Ticketed tours of renovated and replicated 19th century structures from original city, guided Monday and Tuesday on the hour, self-guided Wednesday through Sunday, $2.50 adults, $1 under 18, free to 65 and over. (Galleries free.) 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, 503 E. 9th St. (MacArthur Park): “Waging Modern Warfare”; “Gen. Wesley Clark”; “Vietnam, America’s Conflict”; “Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 9th and Broadway: “History Makers Reception,” 6 p.m. March 21, in partnership with the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame and the UA Pine Bluff; “Crafting the Pitch,” workshop for women in small businesses with the Arkansas Economic Development Administration’s Pat Brown and Anthony Armstrong, 6-8 p.m. March 22; “Arkansas Divine 9: An Exhibit of Arkansas’s African-American Greek Letter Organizations”; permanent exhibits on African-American entrepre-

neurship and work by African-American artists. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683-3593. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: Interactive science exhibits and activities for children and teenagers. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham St.: “Cabinet of Curiosities: Treasures from the University of Arkansas Museum Collection”; “True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley,” musical instruments, through 2017; “First Families: Mingling of Politics and Culture” permanent exhibit including first ladies’ gowns. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. UA LITTLE ROCK: “Emma Powell and Kirsten Hoving: Svalas Saga,” Focus Gallery, through March. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-1 p.m., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-8977. UA PULASKI TECHNICAL COLLEGE, 3000 W. Scenic Drive: Talk by Sharon Farmer, photojournalist, 6 p.m. March 15; “Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement,” through April 14, Windgate Gallery, Center for Humanities and the Arts (CHARTS), 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. 812-2760. WALTON ARTS CENTER, Fayetteville: “Fenix at Nadine Baum,” work by 28 artists in all media, Nadine Baum Studios, through March 30; “The Grammar of Ornament,” through March 17, contemporary works. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays, noon-4 p.m. Sat. 479-443-5600. SMALLER VENUES ARGENTA GALLERY, 413 Main St.: “The Brotherhood of Color,” mixed media paintings by Rex DeLoney, open 5-8 p.m. March 16, Third Friday Argenta Art Walk. ARKANSAS INNOVATION HUB, 201 E. Broadway: Open studios and St. Patrick’s Day Treats, 5-8 p.m. March 16, Third Friday Argenta Art Walk. ARTISTS WORKSHOP GALLERY, 610A Central Ave., Hot Springs: Paintings by Jan Briggs and Bonnie Ricci. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. 6236401. ART VENTURES, 101 Mountain St., Suite 222, Fayetteville: Retrospective of work by retired UA art professor John Newman, through March. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4 p.m.-8 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 1-3 p.m. Sun. 479-439-8641. THE AVENUE RESTAURANT AT THE WATERS HOTEL, 349 Central Ave., Hot Springs: “Jazz on My Mind,” mixed media and works on paper by Rex DeLoney and George Hunt, through March 30. 6253850. BARRY THOMAS FINE ART & STUDIO, 711 Main St., NLR: Landscapes by Thomas, open 5-8 p.m. March 16, Third Friday Argenta Art Walk. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-

Sat. 349-2383. CANTRELL GALLERY, 8208 Cantrell Road: “Looking Closely,” recent works by Laura Raborn, reception 6-8 p.m. March 16, show through May 5. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 224-1335. CORE BREWERY, 411 Main St., NLR: “Flock Together,” Latino Art Project show, opens March 16, Third Friday Argenta Art Walk. GALLERY 221, 2nd and Center Sts.: Work by George Dombek and gallery artists Tyler Arnold, Melissa Deerman, EMILE, Kasten Searles and others in the gallery. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 801-0211. GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Recent works by Roger Bowman and Marcus McAllister, through March 10. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 644-8996. GALLERY CENTRAL, 800 Central Ave., Hot Springs: Work by artist Bob Snider and others. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 3184278. GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., NLR: “23rd Anniversary Exhibition,” work by regionally recognized artists, reception 5-8 p.m. March 16, Third Friday Argenta Art Walk. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 664-2787. HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: “Personal Vision: The Exhibition,” photographs by Adger Cowans taken over the past half century, through April 14. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. 372-6822. JUSTUS FINE ART GALLERY, 827 A Central Ave.: “Shifting Gears,” wood sculpture by Robyn Horn, through March. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. 321-2335. LAMAN LIBRARY ARGENTA BRANCH, 420 Main St., NLR: New works by Michael Shaeffer, opens with reception 5-8 p.m. March 16, Third Friday Argenta Art Walk, show through April 14. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat. 687-1061. LANDMARK BUILDING, 201 Market St., Hot Springs: “Daughters of Diaspora — Women of Color Speak,” mixed media by 16 national and local women artists, gallery walk led by Loni Rainey and Sondra Strong 5-8:30 p.m. April 6, Arts & The Park festival seminar with Arkansas artists and Evita Tezeno 6:30 p.m. May 3, gallery walk with Tezeno, Melverue Abraham and Louise Mandumbwa 5-8:30 p.m. May 4. Sponsored by Henderson State University-Hot Springs. 625-3837. L&L BECK, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Old Masters’ Reproductions,” paintings by Louis Beck. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 6604006. LEGACY FINE ART, 804 Central Ave., Hot Springs: Blown glass chandeliers by Ed Pennington, paintings by Carole Katchen. 8 a.m.-5 LOCAL COLOUR GALLERY, 5811 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Artists collective. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 265-0422.

M2 GALLERY, 11525 Cantrell Road: “11Year Anniversary Show,” work by gallery artists, through April 5. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Mon. 225-6257. MCLEOD FINE ART GALLERY, 106 W. 6th St.: Arkansas artists. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 725-8508. MUGS CAFE, 506 Main St.: “Sock Monster Problems,” handmade monsters and their stories by Chris Massengill. OTHER MUSEUMS JACKSONVILLE MUSEUM OF MILITARY HISTORY, 100 Veterans Circle, Jacksonville: Exhibits on D-Day; F-105, Vietnam era plane (“The Thud”); the Civil War Battle of Reed’sosage Bridge, Arkansas Ordnance Plant (AOP) and other military history. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $3 adults; $2 seniors, military; $1 students. 501-241-1943. LAKEPORT PLANTATION, 601 Hwy. 142, Lake Village: Antebellum mansion; exhibits on plantation life from before, during and after the Civil War. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays. $5 general admission. 870-265-6031. MUSEUM OF AUTOMOBILES, Petit Jean Mountain: Permanent exhibition of more than 50 cars from 1904-1967 depicting the evolution of the automobile. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 7 days. 501-727-5427. MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY, 202 SW O St., Bentonville: Native American artifacts. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat. 479-273-2456. PLANTATION AGRICULTURE MUSEUM, Scott, U.S. Hwy. 165 and state Hwy. 161: Permanent exhibits on historic agriculture. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $4 adults, $3 children. 961-1409. POTTS INN, 25 E. Ash St., Pottsville: Preserved 1850s stagecoach station on the Butterfield Overland Mail Route, with period furnishings, log structures, hat museum, doll museum, doctor’s office, antique farm equipment. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Sat. $5 adults, $2 students, 5 and under free. 479-968-9369. SCOTT PLANTATION SETTLEMENT, Scott: 1840s log cabin, one-room school house, tenant houses, smokehouse and artifacts on plantation life. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 351-0300. www.scottconnections. org. TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, U.S. Hwy. 165, England: Major prehistoric Indian site with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $4 for adults, $3 for ages 6-12, $14 for family. 961-9442. OTHER VENUES 21C MUSEUM HOTEL, Bentonville: “Labor & Materials,” installation by Lina Puerta, photographs by Katrin Korfmann and more. arktimes.com MARCH 15, 2018

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